Free Resources

Every few months or so there are a myriad of new free tools coming onto the web that can be used in conjunction with powerpoint, or assist in your content preparation. Here are a couple of links to useful places for your PowerPoint inspiration - did I mention they are all free?!

For Images
www.sxc.hu
www.freedigitalphotos.net/
www.behold.cc

For Editing Images
http://www.pixlr.com/
http://fotoflexer.com/
www.Splashup.com

For charts:
http://chartchooser.juiceanalytics.com/
http://www.perceptualedge.com/blog/
http://help.infragistics.com/Help/NetAdvantage/NET/2008.1/CLR2.0/html/Chart_2D_Charts.html

For Inspiration:
www.behance.net
www.smashingmagazine.com
www.thefwa.com

Image Rotation Animation

Hey guys, more blog posts to come as I've been busy compiling a set of new things for you all to download and try out.

Before that, I've uploaded another take on the Image movement that I've previously posted in this blog before. This type of animation can again be used for viewing text, shapes and images without the need to keep the "grow/shrink" effect in action - this just uses simple motion paths.

ROTATION ANIMATION - SLIDEBOOM

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SlideBoom Presentation Contest 2009

Slideboom is now announcing the opening of their Presentation Contest for 2009. The competition runs from May 18th to June 21st with the winners being announced on the 30th June.

Participants can submit presentations based on different themes such as Business, Education, Career or on any other interesting subjects;and will be judged based on these requirements:

Presentation Requirements

- Created in PowerPoint 2003, 2007 presentations (.ppt, .pptx, .pps, .ppsx)

- Specially designed for the contest

- In English language only

- Contains 15 slides or more

- Does not infringe the copyrightNote

- Is comprehensible and complete

- Is not unethical, antisocial, immoral, ugly and does not contain spam or open advertisement

Besides:

- Presentations on Business, Education or Career are more preferable

- Animations and transition effects, audio and video elements are welcomed

- Presentation size is limited to 100 Mb

It is also my great pleasure to have been invited as one of the global judges on this competition, so I look forward to seeing what you can do with those presentations!

Click here (if you haven't already) to go the competition site.

Using Quotes

Just like any other message in your slide, try to stick to the "one message per slide rule" - even when it comes to using quotations. Don't stick them at the bottom of a slide, or at the end of a 'Q&A' or 'thank-you' slide.

Take time to articluate these important quotes as they can validate a point your making, transit to another point, reveal industry data or survey results. I often say to people don't use quotes from long-ago speakers of wisdom - not doubting the wisdom - buts its usually not relevant to the context of your typical business presentation.

Use quotes from:

- Industry & Business Leaders
- Research and Survey
- People known in your areas (products, industry, etc.)

When designing a quotation slide, try to remember to:

- Always try to have the picture of the author of the quote
- Source of the quote, including dates
- Picture of the original source documents
- Only highlight the 'main' sentance to be quoted (not the whole document).

Quotation Sample

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Silhouette Samples

Throughout much of the advertising that you see out there, as well as in many presentations, the use of silhouttes can be a very powerful (yet simple) visual device. It allows for quick reference to the subject matter using plain colours and lets the audience focus on the core message/ accompanying text.

This is just a quick example of it being used on a title slide and a quick diagram.

Silouhette Demo

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Here is an actual presentation from the economist will many good examples of the use of silhouettes.

Economist Ads On Edge Recession

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Tutorial Downloads

Thanks for all those attending the PowerPoint classes and the kind comments, and as promised here are some of the answers for the tutorial questions set.

These are all meant to improve your animation skills, so you can see the final version here as well as download the files.

This is available in your workbooks, but this simple side-flow animation allows you to control the flow of bullets rather than revealing them all at once.

Side flow 2 answer

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Download the file here.


In this second example, you were tasked to put together different animation effects to see if you could replicate a simple page-flip effect.

Page Flip answer

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Download the file here.


Lastly, following from the .gif animation, you were tasked to achivie this loop animation similar effect using 'motion paths'.

Loop Answer

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Download the file here.

Who got them right? Or who just waited for the downloads! :)

Old Samples, Examples & Testers

For those that have attended some of my workshops & courses, you may have seen these before. These are mainly a mix of old samples, quick presentations (although I'm not proving the 'full', rather edited versions) and testers I had done a few years ago.

Since we're in 2009, there is a whole new batch of demo's, samples, and giveaways - the catch? You have to join my workshop to get them!

Nevertheless, enjoy these (older) ones... but sadly, the music and sound has been removed from them. And there may be glitches in the animation & timing due to using SlideBoom (but hey - it's free!)