Presentation Redesign for Holzwerk Interiors

Presentation redesign is tricky business. On one hand, you have a ready-made presentation so your content woes are solved. On the other hand, you have to start from scratch in order to do away with any preconceived notions. On several occasions, there are styling guidelines to be followed which binds your creativity and leaves very little scope for any out-of-the-box ideas.

Most of the people that we meet, believe that a presentation that is neatly styled – with a common template, nicely bulleted slides, one font size throughout the presentation – is an effective presentation. That may be true for a document, but for a presentation that isn’t always true. At Effect Works, we tend to take the middle path. One such example is the presentation redesign assignment for Holzwerk Interiors.

Holzwerk Interiors had a marketing presentation and they wanted us to revamp it. Holzwerk is a customized interiors company that creates innovative interiors for home and office. Their existing presentation had a common theme. Every slide had an embedded flash banner on the left to display their images. On the right hand side, of each slide, was a bulleted list.

Here are a few sample slides:

We replaced the flash slideshows with a single image of their work on every slide. The presentation thus effectively became a portfolio of their work, highlighting their best work. We also dumped all the bullet points on the presentation, each and every one of them. A bit of Presentation-fu here and there and the transformation was complete. Here is a little case study that we made for this assignment, check it out.

Denmark through the ages – Presentation Redesign

“History is a guide to navigation in perilous times. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.” – David C. McCullough

We at Effect Works had a brush with History when Maersk Training Centre approached us with an assignment to redesign their training material. Maersk Training Centre is a global provider of specialist learning to off-shore, maritime and wind-power industries. It is the principal education centre for AP Moller – Maersk personnel and now, as a worldwide concern, has opened its doors to all companies.

Denmark through the ages is a part of Maersk training material pertaining to Danish History. Our job was to redesign the presentation to make it more appealing and educative while keeping the style guidelines of Maersk intact.

Our approach, thus was to make the content richer. We added a lot of trivia to the existing content and backed up the text with meaningful imagery. A historical timeline, with slides overflowing with information that are distinguishable by color schemes, was prepared. We peppered the presentation with relevant images and engrossing stories.  What followed was a ready reckoner of Danish History. Check out the presentation on Slideshare and let us know how you find it.

Twitter Myths

At Effect Works, we heart Twitter. We just can’t have enough of it. However not everyone is comfortable using Twitter and a lot of myths, about the service, have been doing rounds on the Internet. Twitter Myths enlists 10 common myths about Twitter and the facts behind them. It attempts to dismiss the various misgivings about Twitter. This presentation also clears things up for Small Businesses who are struggling to integrate Twitter into their Social Media strategy.

Within hours of uploading it on Slideshare, Twitter Myths was selected as one of the Top Presentations of the Day. . In the next two days, Twitter Myths got over 2000 hits on Slideshare and was one of the most popular presentations on the website. As of this moment, Twitter Myths has had more than 6000 pageviews, 80 Likes on Facebook and 44 favorites on Slideshare.

Check out Twitter Myths on Slideshare and do share your thoughts on the topic with us. We’d love to hear from you. Also, Effect Works now has a Twitter profile of its own – Follow us @effectworks for tweets on presentation design, presentation tips and much more.

Mr. X saves the Earth

Mr. X saves the Earth was our entry for the World’s Best Presentation Contest 2009, on Slideshare.

We looked at Slideshare’s contest as an opportunity, a chance to tell a story. A story about change or the need for change. We decided to select Mr. X to be the hero of our story. Mr. X is a stick figure, a stick figure who wants to ‘Save the Earth’.

Mr. X’s story and experiences teach us some valuable yet extremely simple lessons. Our intention with Mr. X was to keep the idea simple – You don’t need a superhero to save a planet.

It was one of the top 10 presentations in the ‘Creative/Offbeat’ category. Mr. X has since then been converted in corporate brochures for NGOs and Green businesses.Check out his story on Slideshare and do tell us how you feel about him and his mission.

Land ahoy!

Welcome to the Effect Works blog!

At Effect Works, we help organizations and individuals communicate their ideas to the world. This blog is an effort to take our communication to the next level. We will use this space to share ideas about presentations and online branding. We’ll also showcase the work that we’ve done and the stories behind it.

We’ll be tweaking the Effect Works website and blog in the coming days, to liven up the time that you spend here. We welcome ideas and suggestions, criticism and comments. We are all ears.

Let the conversations begin!