[10 on Tuesday] 10 Basic Principles for Rehabbing the Right Way from PreservationNation
Strengths
We love the consistency of this deck. The font, photos and colors are all uniform throughout, making the presentation easy to read and easy to digest. The presentation itself is to the point and serves its purpose masterfully. Preservation Nation also does well to use a template that is consistent while at the same time allowing for layout mix-ups. The blue text box switches from bottom to top to left to right throughout the deck, which helps to avoid a static look.
Another reason we like Preservation Nation’s template is because it still allows a main focus on visuals. It gives the text room to breathe as well as featuring a large visual on each slide. As all designers know, templates run the risk of looking much too template-y, and Preservation Nation does well here to avoid that trap.
Content
As we already mentioned, this presentation achieves its purpose with flying colors, which is really the most important consideration of any presentation. Though it’s not at all groundbreaking in terms of design, the message gets across to the viewer with ease (a fact that should not be underappreciated).
In particular, we like the amount of text Preservation Nation uses on each slide, with no more than 1 or 2 sentences per point. The content is very concise, allowing the viewer to have a quick, poignant takeaway as they breeze through the short twelve slide deck.
Also, Preservation Nation uses excellent visuals to support its main points, which is an essential consideration in presentation design. Visuals should always enhance, nuance and support content. And last but certainly not least, we’re thrilled that Preservation Nation includes such a clear call to action at the end of its presentation. A call to action slide should not be forgotten. This presentation does well to include a link to follow up for more tips, and lets the viewer know that this kind of “ten on Tuesday” deck will be a weekly occurrence.
Weaknesses
Logo
While we really like the design of the “ten on Tuesday” logo, it doesn’t need to be included on every slide in the deck. Though Preservation Nation is working with a template, such repetition of the same element is unnecessary, as it serves no purpose to the content on each slide.
Moreover, the logo is yellow, so it significantly risks distracting viewers. Yellow typically attracts the eye, thus placing the logo on each slide takes away from content on the slide, which is infinitely more important.
When analyzing the design of Preservation Nation’s deck, we have to keep in mind that it’s a template. Certainly you can be creative with a template, but only up to a point. We’ve already established that the presentation serves its purpose masterfully, but we’d be remiss not to mention a few design techniques that could give the plain deck a little boost.
One of our designers suggested switching up the yellow and blue throughout the deck to avoid repetition, and another of our designers advised the use of a few subtle patterns or textures to jazz up the slides a bit. Lastly, though the photos looked suitably consistent throughout, they could have also benefitted from a treatment to better match each other and the colors of the template.
In Summary
Preservation Nation’s presentation is an excellent example of using a template effectively and consistently. The content is concise, easy to digest, and accompanied by appropriate visuals. What do you think?
