The Non-Designer's Presentation Book

I agree with the other reviewers that this is a good book with lots of practical advice. The only serious drawback is that so much of the information is redundant with the author's other big seller  Non-Designer's Design Book, The (3rd Edition) . There is basically only one or two chapters worth of new material here if you have read her Non-Designer's Design Book. If you are thinking about designing just for presentations and have not read the other book grab this one for sure but if you have it consider getting something else instead like  Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations  or  slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations .

I have been a fan of Robin Williams since I first read  Non-Designer's Design Book, The (3rd Edition)  several years ago. Robin understands what it is to simplify the discreet components of design to make them understandable for the novice.In this book, she applies those principles to PowerPoint. As a conference speaker and college professor/instructional designer I have seen some pretty awful PPTs. It doesn't take much to improve them. Like  slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations  and  Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery  this book gets down to basics and illustrates them beautifully. The key difference with this book is it's size. This is short, sweet and too the point, so it's ideal for that too-busy-to-learn-the-right-way person who really needs the help but won't take the time to get it.

As a teacher, this book is a great reference to show the students the correct way and the tips of the trade in creating great presentations so that their fellow students are getting the idea of their presentations. This will help them in college and beyond. It is a real easy book to follow and has everything spelled out for the reader. Thanks.

I bought this book to see what advice a graphics designer would give to slide makers. I am glad I bought it even though I would have liked it to be longer with further design guidelines. There are some good tips, some of which I read for the first time. The book is clear and instructions are easy to follow.

Thanks Robin for a great book. I read it over the holidays, and it was great to understand why I was doing a lot of things right with my academic presentations. I'm not a designer, and have never taken any design classes. But this book really made me think a lot about how the delivery is just as important as the content. Thank you for inspiring this science teacher to do better, and my students thank you as well.

My son is in a science and math magnet program for high school this coming fall. This book is a requirement. He hasn't looked at it yet but is required to read the 1st 2 chpters before school starts in Sept.

I've recently purchased a number of books on presentation design and delivery, and this one was great. It takes a good look at the whole process and addresses many of the common pitfalls. I found it helpful to have a book like this that takes a simple, comprehensive approach.

A no-nonsense, direct approach. Useful. Makes sense, as do all her books. I like her!

I have two of Robin's other books, which have been influential in my amateur efforts at work designing flyers, proposals and presentations.My presentations have evolved considerably since discovering Garr Reynolds work (Presentation Zen), which is superb, and I was looking forward to this title from Robin to provide me with new ideas and more options beyond Reynolds' 'zen' approach.Robin's conversational and lighthearted writing style makes this an easy read, and she also packs the book with great content. It's full colour throughout, which was pretty much essential given the subject matter.As with her other titles, she gives loads of before and after examples, and the book closes with a quiz chapter asking the reader to identify what's right or wrong with various slide decks, which really hones the eye and forces an understanding of the core principles.In this book, she applies the four principles from 'The Non-Designers Design Book' (Contrast, Repitition, Alignment and Proximity) in the context of presentation design. If you already have that book, this will be a great refresher and deepen your understanding of the application of these principles to slide design. If you haven't read that book, this will be a great introduction to the principles and will provide you with a fantastic toolkit to instantly improve your slide design (you should also get her Non-Designers Design Book for a great primer on typography).Where the book really stands out though is Robin's inclusion of chapters on preparation, clarity of message, plot/storytelling and great insights into better use of the software (screenshots and instructions for PowerPoint and Keynote). This book is the full package - great graphic design advice, tips to help you control your software (rather than it controlling you with auto templates, etc) and help with planning and delivering your overall message.I enjoyed the section on 'Ignore These Rules' where Robin has a friendly dig at the presentation gurus who command us to "Never use animation" or "No more than six words on a slide". She's realistic and down-to-earth enough to realise that, sometimes, a little animation is good or that you can read aloud the text on a slide - as long as everything you're doing is HELPING to get the message across.Nice chapter on handouts and a 15% discount voucher from istockphoto.com at the back.All in all, great stuff. Buy it and make your presentations stand out!

Nothing good here, is really doesn't help much.

helped with college course

Let me start this review with my opinion about previous Robin Williams books: I love both "The Non-Designers Design Book" and "The Non-Designers Type Book". They are well-written and very entartaining and include advices that I have used several times.But this new book lacks of the quality of the others. It seems that Robin has tried to apply her knowledge on presentations and I don't agree with some of the slides she shows. Anyway, the book has some interesting chapters as the ones about knowing your software, animations or breaking some rules. As her previous books, the style is entertaining and very clear, but the content is not as good as I expected.It you want to do great presentations, I think "Slide:ology", "Presentation:Zen" or "Beyond Bullet Points" are better options.

After recently having experienced an epiphany that my presentation slides are terrible, I went looking for help. Looking at books like  Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery  showed me the goal, but not having any background in graphic design, a lot of those ideas are unattainable. As a busy professional, I don't have the time to take graphics classes and I lack the budget to hire someone to do them for me. I stumbled on this book and it looked to be just what I needed. Williams provides practical, straightforward advice on how to apply the principles of good graphic design to your presentations. The book is simple, practical and helpful. It is agnostic with respect to software, and gives concrete advice on how to make your slides better. The main complaint I'd have with the book is that is a bit sparse at times and is probably best read in conjunction with the author's  The Non-Designer's Design Book , which fleshes out the principles on which this book is based. With that small caveat, I recommend this book highly. I will still not attain the standards seen in many presentations, but thanks to this book, my slides will most definitely improve. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and DeliveryThe Non-Designer's Design Book