We handle the 'total package' for lots of campaigns, which includes the website, brochures, flyers, postcards, signage, PowerPoint template and presentations, name badges, web banners/ads and any element that needs to be designed to assure a consistent visual theme. But each of these projects begins with developing the theme graphic.

For this specific project I was given the general thought of the program (the official title was still be determined). This was a medical speaking series on the topic of "evaluating the traditional/accepted/old therapies and looking toward the future and integrating new therapies into the standard protocols".

My first step was doing keyword searches in a number of online photo sites to come up with visual ideas.

From there I merged my notes down to a series of concepts - simple 1-2 sentence descriptions.

Then I downloaded comp images, did some very basic positioning and editing to create a series of slides like this:

The goal is to provide the client with words and visuals to see which resonates with their vision for the program so the real design phase can begin with a direction.

Here are the 7 concepts provided for this specific project:

1. "From Little to Big" - switch from the accepted space to a new enviroment.

2. "From Empty to Full" - Move from half full to plentiful.

3. "From Status Quo to New" - move from the crowded/accepted to fresh space.

4. "See and Understand" - What is seen/accepted can transform into more.

5. "Out of the Old" - From coal comes the true treasure, diamonds.

6. "Becoming Superman" - Regular guy Clark Kent needs to transform to be seen as a superhero.

7. "Advancing Technology" - Move from outdated to modern for faster, better, more efficient.

From this simple storyboard of theme concepts evolved a full multicomponent design project that carried consistent visual message, color scheme and styling to all elements.

- Troy @ TLC

As a company we do virtually nothing in the way of advertising, and that is fine with me. But I did create some promo cards, actually 2-sided business cards a while back that I occassionally hand out or have available at different speaking or training programs I am doing. Just something fun, visually cool and small.

- Troy @ TLC

I needed a slide that showed the 5 states with the most population growth over the past 5 years. The original slide had a standard bar chart, which told the statistics but was not very compelling.

I recreated this slide with a map of the U.S. highlighting the top 5 states. I used the 3D tools in PowerPoint to make the states 'pop' out of the map and applied a custom gradient fill to each. I also applied a 3D rotation to the state name and percentage text with a white glow to allow the text to be easy to read.

Note: all data in these slides is sample data (eg. I made it up, while I waiting for real data from the client).

- Troy @ TLC

From a project, this slide was about how co-workers perceive the actions of different departments within their own orgranization. The title was shortened to a simple statement of "Public Perception". The 4 wordy bullets of text eliminated and replaced with a single image that the presenter was able to talk to and use to set the stage for a quick story and explanation of the point being made.

The image was developed from a few Royalty Free images (from Thinkstock.com) that I modified in Photoshop before adding to the slide.
1. Group image holding blank white sign that I dropped out the background from and saved as a .png with transparency (note the middle guys head is able to overlap the title bar)

2. 3D rendering image of a generic group of characters (in this case representing the 'other' department).

3. The speech bubbles and talking symbols where added in PowerPoint. The speech bubbles an imported .emf I created in Illustrator and the text as stylized PPT text.

4. The reflection is from PPT

- Troy @ TLC

I had a series of slides with a dominant visual of reports, articles and other "Flat" content. Here is a sample showing the inserted .jpg of the Sustainability Report.

Rather than leave the slide with just an inserted graphic I used the 3D Rotation in PPT to add some perspective and a more dynamic slide layout.

I then used the eye dropper tool to pickup the 3D attributes and apply the same effect to each the image on each slide.

- Troy @ TLC

This is from a recent presentation project.

The slide started with 2 original images:

In photoshop I dropped out the background of each and saved as .png images with transparency.

Then each image was inserted to the slide, a simple FADE IN animation applied to the top image for the transformation.

- Troy @ TLC

Here is a quick interview I did at the Microsoft MVP Summit. We talked about video options in PPT 2010 and I used samples slides from my Winter Olympic presentations. See it here.

- Troy @ TLC

For a recent project I needed some eye catching callouts/starbursts. I created a series of 3D stars and overlayed text boxes with the key phrases (New, Now, Available, etc.). It was a quick solution that looked really nice.

I started with a simple Star autoshape.

Adjustments to several tabs of the Format Shape box was all that was needed to create the visual.

One of the tricky adjustments is changing the perspective to have a left facing star and a right facing star. Only 2 tabs are needed. The Shadow tab, adjusting the Angle and the 3D Rotation tab. Compare the numbers on the Rotation tab.

You can download a slide with these 3D stars on it here (33k ).

- Troy @ TLC

In the original slide there was a nice graphic and the layout was clean and balanced. It did not have bullet points for the text, a small graphic or many other common layout issues.

For the presentation makeover a series of colored and slightly beveled shapes were used throughout. Keeping consistency the text was highlighted on the circle, the demographic image on a rounded corner rectangle and the two connected with the gradient (triangle).

- Troy @ TLC

The recolor feature (FORMAT >> RECOLOR) can customize an image, saving a trip to Photoshop. For this presentation I needed to use the same content in 3 color coded sections. Once the funnel image was optimized and saved from Photoshop as a .png with no background I was able to do the rest in PowerPoint. Here is my original, simple greyscale funnel.

And here the funnel on 3 slides - no grey.

The funnel image used the custom color recolor:

The bars use a 2 color gradient fill with just color 1 adjusted (color 2 = white and 100% transparent).

Download the sample presentation to see the recolor tool in use (129K). Note: if your browser changes downloaded file to".zip" rename to ".pptx".

- Troy @ TLC