In The Non-Designer's Presentation Book, Second Edition, Williams introduces four fundamental, easy-to-use principles for designing great presentation visuals, and four more principles specific to crystal-clear communication with slides. Whether you work with a Mac or PC, PowerPoint, Keynote, or some other tool, Robin guide you -- in her signature, light-hearted style -- through the entire process of creating an inspiring, visually powerful presentation that works.

Robin Williams is the author of dozens of best-selling and award-winning books, including The Non-Designer’s Design Book, The Little Mac Book, and so many more. Through her writing, teaching, and workshops, Robin has educated and influenced an entire generation of computer users in the areas of design, typography, desktop publishing, the Mac, and the web.

1: Where to Begin?   

What’s a presentation?

Does it need to be digital?

Yes, it needs to be digital

Which slide size to use?

Both presenting and posting?

Where is your audience?

What’s a bad presentation?

What’s a good presentation?

Software options

Boundaries can be great

Templates and assets

Share your slides

2: Get yourself Organized     

Plan, organize, outline, write

Now that you’re organized

Four principles of presentation design (overview)

3: Clarity         

Edit the text!

Spread out the text!

How many slides in a presentation?

Sometimes you need lots on one slide

4: Relevance  

Get rid of superfluous stuff

Backgrounds

Don’t use dorky clip art

Use relevant photos

5: Animation  

Animation creates a focus

Concerns about animation

6: Plot 

Make a beginning

Tell us where you’re going

Text vs. images

Find the humans in the story

Tell relevant stories

Vary the pace

Make an end

And leave time for questions

Four principles of design (overview)

7: Contrast     

Contrast with typeface

Contrast with color

Contrast provides substance

Contrast can help organize

Contrast demands attention

8: Repetition  

Repeat to create a consistent look

Repeat a style

Repeat the image, but differently

Unity with variety

Design the repetitive elements

Repetition doesn’t mean sameness

9: Alignment  

Alignment cleans up individual slides

Alignment cleans up your deck

Alignment unifies your deck

Alignment makes you look smarter

Alignment is a great organizer

Alignment will need adjusting

Intentionally break the alignment!

10: Proximity  

Create relationships

White space is okay

But avoid trapped white space

Proximity cleans and organizes

Proximity is a starting point

11: Handouts  

Why include handouts

12: Learn your Software        

Turn off “Autofit” or “Shrink text to fit”

Set the vertical alignment to the top

Adjust the space between lines

Adjust the space between paragraphs

Crop or mask an image

Don’t squish the images

13: Ignore these Rules           

Never read a slide aloud

Never use serif typefaces

Never use animation

Never use more than one background

Never make a slide without an image on it

Never use more than five bullet points per slide

Never use more than two or three words per bullet point

Never use PowerPoint

Never turn the lights off. Never turn the lights on

Never provide handouts before your talk

Never use pie charts

Never use Arial or Helvetica

14: Listen to your Eyes           

Quiz: Listen to your eyes

Checklist for content

Checklist for slides

Put it all together

15: Resources