PowerPoint is a great tool for creating and manipulating mock-ups. And PPT 2007's drawing and style tools make it possible to complete entire projects without needing outside resources. As example, this application interface mockup was done completely with PowerPoint (eg. no photoshop, illustrator, or other external application).

The full project walked through several usage scenarios and was setup with trigger animations to allow the presenter to interact with the application to demonstrate the information flow.

- Troy @ TLC

This is from a real presentation, but it was a demo of marketing options (and not a Microsoft project). So the real work was in PhotoShop and then used the final image as one of many in the presentation.

Original image:

And with a bit of PhotoShop time - a new sponsor!

- Troy @ TLC

One of the Trump University groups needed a new template to consolidate their presentations onto for a consistent and professional look. The entire project went great, although I kept hearing the famous 'You're Fired' running through my head...

The final template that was approved focused on rich-elegant-professional look. Here is the Title and Content slide layouts from the template:

- Troy @ TLC

SmartArt is a great solution for converting text to visual elements. For a recent project I modified a simple timeline SmartArt (Closed Chevron Process) with customized drop shadows to add some visual interest to the slide.

All was accomplished by adjusting the shadow distance for each of the 3 elements.

Download the slide here.

- Troy @ TLC

One of the things that definitely keeps presentation work fresh is a diversity of projects. My daughters' are on a swim team together and the president of the swim club asked if I could help with updating some of the website elements, starting with the webpage banner at mesaaquatics.com.

- Troy @ TLC

Although I mostly highlight PowerPoint related projects, I do a number of video projects each month. Here is one that was fun and an interesting topic (Social Media). Plus it is easy to highlight as the video is posted online (vs. being used at a meeting or distributed on DVD).

Here is the GenNext Media homepage, which highlights the introduction video I storyboarded from website content and eBooks (used PPT for storyboard phase) and then developed in a video editor (I use Vegas Pro).

- Troy @ TLC

For a recent project a slide needed show the sales team activity was "Blasting Off" (as in super productive). This is the animation Lori developed, minus some corporate logos and text. We tend to stay away from "clip art" but in this case it worked with the message, the presentation visuals and the speaker's style. Download the slide here.

- Troy @ TLC

If you are in the U.S. - Happy Labor Day! It is a day of rest and honoring our labor and that of others around us.

Ironically I am in the office designing presentations for 3 clients which makes this like any other day - a day of labor... But excited to have projects with diverse clients that make life fun.

I did not open a 3D graphics program for the 'Labor Day' text, but PPT 2007. Uses a custom font that is embedded, so everyone should see the slide as created. Download the slide here (400k).

- Troy @ TLC

I am continuously wanting to share my presentation work, but continuously held back by the fact that client files are not released. So I pulled from recent projects a dozen dynamic animated slides, 'cleaned' them of all client reference and will be posting them for download!

Here is a really fun animated slide that uses only PPT animations and images prepp'd in Photoshop to create the slot machine effect.

Download the full PowerPoint 2007 file, that has sound and all animations accessible with this link (.pptx and 650K)

- Troy @ TLC

I had a few emails asking about the 4th of July post. I did most of the work in Photoshop compositing the red/white rays with the fireworks. Then in PPT 2007 I added the TLC logo, a radial gradient shape under the logo to help it have contrast and be visible and finally created the text using PPT 2007 gradient fill options.

The text is a custom font (Albert, which is license restricted so not embedded - will default to some other font on your computer...). I added a custom 3 step gradient, bold outline and near opaque drop shadow (needed on the visually busy background used in previous post). The slide can be downloaded here.

- Troy @ TLC