PowerPoint...not

May 31, 2007 6:53 AM

I am looking for examples of innovative uses of boring old PowerPoint—beyond the normal title and bullets. I want to create a presentation that...doesnt look like PowerPoint. Are there any places to get ideas?
posted by punkfloyd to Grab Bag (16 answers total)

Presentation Zen is a good place to start looking.
posted by Ness at 7:02 AM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Gar Reynolds' Presentation Zen is a useful source of ideas and covers the specifics of getting Powerpoint to jump through hoops it is not normally pointed at.
posted by rongorongo at 7:03 AM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

Beyond Bullets is also a good blog with guides to what matters and what doesn't. His book Beyond Bullet Points is a good read.
posted by jessamyn at 7:07 AM on May 31, 2007

I meant to post this too, via Presentation Zen: Slideshare's World's Best Presentation Contest results
posted by Ness at 7:08 AM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

I build my slides in powerpoint, but they don't really look like normal powerpoint stuff. I follow that beyond bulletpoints book and keep a single short sentence on each slide, with a full-bleed photo behind it. Each slide gets about a minute of talking from me, and I don't read the slides at the audience.
posted by mathowie at 7:11 AM on May 31, 2007

David Byrne has done some art work with PowerPoint. You might find something useful in it.
Here's a Wired article
posted by DarkForest at 7:43 AM on May 31, 2007

Change the dimensions of the slide in page set-up. Think golden ratio presentations, or square presentations. It's simple, but, when I do it someone usually asks what program I used to make the presentation.
posted by Eringatang at 8:28 AM on May 31, 2007 [1 favorite]

See my earlier thread for more tips.
posted by special-k at 9:52 AM on May 31, 2007

If someone gave me a presentation where they didn't read to me verbatim (or paraphrase slightly, if they were "good"), and if they used a non-default template (check out office.microsoft.com), I might actually have to pay attention.

Above all, let PowerPoint be secondary to you and what you're saying.
posted by fogster at 10:12 AM on May 31, 2007

Get Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Akinson. I used this on a presentation and didn't use one bullet point. He shows you how to script a ppt like a film script for maximum impact.
posted by Taken Outtacontext at 11:23 AM on May 31, 2007

Lawrence Lessig gives an awesome presentation that looks nothing like powerpoint, though it is. He is mentioned at presentation zen, and you can check out his style online in a google video.
posted by procrastination at 1:07 PM on May 31, 2007

Powerful PowerPoint for Educators: Using Visual Basic for Application to Make PowerPoint Interactive by David M. Marcovitz

I've created some interactive, Jeopardy style games this way using PowerPoint. Keep track of time, scores, etc. More ideas and examples on the website.
posted by squink at 3:53 PM on May 31, 2007

Spaulding Gray
posted by klangklangston at 5:41 PM on May 31, 2007

Look at what people using Keynote are doing.

The only genuine PowerPoint™ presentations I have seen that weren’t terrible and a complete catalogue of what not to do are from Kevin Larson of Microsoft. Among other basic things, he uses reverse type with no gradients, and you should, too.

And of course now I see he has none online, apparently. I could ask.
posted by joeclark at 6:06 PM on May 31, 2007

If you get tired of looking at examples of good Powerpoint, there's always Click To Add Title, a competition to be as bad as possible.
posted by salvia at 7:03 PM on May 31, 2007

The best Powerpoint presentations I've seen treat ppt like a slide projector and just display images, full size (no white border).
posted by salvia at 7:04 PM on May 31, 2007