Disqus - Latest Comments for jimdickeson

Re: Presentation design blog Idea Transplant: Light or dark background?

jimdickeson — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 15:33:21 -0000

More considerations.

Larger rooms are often darkened. A bright, white background can create some audience eyestrain. Also, if the speaker isn't well lit, he/she can become silhouetted.

Screens and projectors are almost always landscape. Suppose your image is portrait, has a white background, and enlarging or stretching isn't an option. When the slide also has a white background, there is a large amount of white space. This could be desirable, but often not. But if you put that image (with its white background) on a slide with a black background, your audience won't readily perceive the empty space around it. For all they know, your screen is momentarily portrait and reduced in size.

Re: Filling parts of a data chart with an image

jimdickeson — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:12:03 -0000

Reminds me of a recent need for a clock face but showing the passage of time, and only going five hours. I made a pie chart with 12 equal data elements as a guide, putting my numbers at the ends of the pie slices. Planted a circle over the pie chart. Deleted the pie chart. Plotted temporary guides horizontally and vertically, lining up with the side, top and bottom handles, all this to find dead center. Planted a rectangle same color as background to block the left have of the circle. Planted a right triangle same color to block the five to six hour. Deleted the guides. Planted another circle on top of the first, no fill, heavy line to establish the perimeter of the clock face. Selected the first circle, entrance animation, wheel, one spoke.

When the animation plays my clock sweeps from the 12 o'clock position to the 5 o'clock position with my fill color. It actually sweeps a full 360 degrees, but from 5:00 to 12:00 is masked behind the rectangle and the triangle. All this would have been easier with PPT 2007 layers, but I was stuck on a machine with only 2003.

PowerPoint can be fun when you think outside the text box.

Re: Book review - "A whole new Mind"

jimdickeson — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:23:49 -0000

Jan,

I liked this book (except my left brain did not like the cute hole in the cover). Dan Pink's TED speech is over at Garr Reynold's Presentation Zen (http://www.presentationzen..... His talk expands well on his left brain / right brain / whole mind concept.