Monthly Meeting: July 2024 - Presentation Best Practices

Rachel Gozhansky is a visual storyteller. She combines artistry with analytics in order to communicate with the world. As a designer, Rachel focuses on projects that engage strategic thinking (presentation design and information visualization) or that leverage her illustration skills (pastiche). She commonly works with Adobe Creative Cloud's design, illustration and video software, and with presentation, word processing and spreadsheet applications including Microsoft Office, Google Suite and Canva.

Meeting Highlights—Tips for Memorable Presentations:

- Ask yourself, “What do I want to communicate?” 

- Remember: it is not about you, it’s about the audience

- Identify your audience: Who? Why? Wants? Worries?

- Formulate your thesis/theme = Your Point of View (POV) + How POV Serves Your Audience

- To hook an audience and hold their interest, structure the presentation in 3 Acts: 

1. The Why 

2. The Vision

3. The Resolution

- To build your presentation: 

• Brainstorm—avoid using slide software at first; use sticky notes to storyboard ideas, or write out ideas longhand

• Make the presentation interactive 

• Leverage the power of storytelling

• Edit—for extra information leave a handout/QR code

- Remember: slides are NOT the presentation, they are simply a visual aide

- Crucial to understand: 

• People cannot effectively listen if they are taking notes or looking at visual aides the whole time, so don’t make them choose, instead, let them just listen sometimes

• People do remember pictures, so pairing a picture with words makes a presentation more memorable

- Using slides effectively: 

• Create a structure

• Select font and color palette for consistency and professional look

• Keep it clean, simple and purposeful

• Use short statements (text heavy slides are disengaging and people can read faster than you can speak)

• One idea per slide

• Reveal the slides slowly

• Use a large font size

• Consider slide titles (ask yourself if titles are necessary)

- Practice, practice, practice! (polish and time it)

- Ask yourself, “What is your story?” … then tell it!

- Be authentic

- Recommended for slides: PowerPoint; Canva

• Think outside the template, yet obey your thesis/theme

- Recommended for stock photography: Shutterstock; Unsplash

• Include image credits, acknowledgements, and obtain permission to use imagery when necessary

- For school presentations: 

• Offer 3 presentation choices that you have at-the-ready

• Ask the school topics they want to be covered

• Include your bio (and “about you” as a kid)

• Make it relatable

See more of Rachel's work here: rachelgozhansky.com