daviesbatt blog

What's the powerpoint? - 4 basic tips for a killer presentation

noreply@blogger.com (daviesbatt) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 23:02:00 +0000

"Businesses talk to each other in powerpoint"

The quote is from a pitch handler at Interbrand and I believe that it is true, your company powerpoint template is a reflection of you as a business that is only ever seen by your peers, It says a lot about who you are and how you wish to present yourselves.

I have been building powerpoint templates and finessing presentations for many years, corporate clients include big boys like Interbrand, Coca Cola, BT, Thomson Reuters and TAG as well as high gloss clients such as Mont Blanc Pens and ESPA spa designs. I have a few basic tips for all powerpoint business users.

1, Get the template right first

Powerpoint is not particularly user-friendly, but it is designed for its purpose, all the functions you need to produce a professional presentation can be built into the template. On the master pages your template designer should have placed styles for text and bullet lists appropriate to your usual presentation style. They should have defined areas for graphics and charts as well as header & footer styles, page numbers etc.

2. Teach the operators how to use the template properly.

When building your presentation the three most useful tips i can give are:

use the slide layout palette to define each slide, you can add finesse to the presentation later, the important thing is to get the info in and to-style first. when you choose a slide layout style powerpoint adds the necessary elements to the slide, use them, don't draw a text box, choose a slide layout that contains a text box. If you need a second text box copy the one on the slide as it will have the format embedded.

use 'Edit > paste special > Unformatted text' when you paste text in as it will automatically take the style defined in the template.

use the custom colours specified these can be found at 'Format > Custom Colours' they also appear as the top row in any colour pallette in powerpoint.

3. Powerpoint animation and slide transition

I also have 3 useful tips for animation/transition:

Just don't do it. (dances in letter by letter, to oompah band soundtrack)

honestly don't. (72pt bold red font spinning in from the bottom)

really, really don't (boxes in, expands, and zooms off left)

Apart from a very select few clients in the media industry very little animation is actually needed, it distracts from the message and adds an unnecessary level of design complication in case last minute changes are necessary.

If you absolutely must animate, use subtle 'fades' and simple 'wipes' as entrances and 'disappear' for exits.

4. Corporate fonts and graphics

Fonts in powerpoint are a nightmare, the help file says that you can embed them, but if you read the small print you'll find that most corporate fonts are a no no and its back to Arial, Times or any other generic font that everybody has. If if simply has to be Helvetica Neue bold extended then use a graphic, 24 bit PNG with no background. One of the good things about powerpoint is that it loves PNG files and PNG files are great, they handle transparency brilliantly and you can place these files over patterned backgrounds easily and cleanly. Ask your designer to supply a couple of slides of logos and graphics on your template in PNG format to cut and paste.

Graphics look best if they are cut out from the background, they have impact without destroying the slide branding and can be placed as enhancements as well as for subject illustration, again PNG tranparency comes in very handy. Add a few slides of company imagery to the template.

This article covers the basics, at DaviesBatt we put as much thought and creativity into our Powerpoint Presentations as we do to our Annual Reports, Websites and Corporate Brochures and we think it is just as important.

When you are presenting your services to other businesses can they see what your powerpoint is?

The new business reality - Promoting your business in the credit crunch world

noreply@blogger.com (daviesbatt) — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:54:00 +0000

We can all see what is happening in the financial world today and also begin to see the business and social effects of the downturn. Every business needs to take a lead from the big boys which means cut, cut and cut again. get yourselves back to the lean, mean business machine that made you successful to begin with.

Having achieved a new sleek streamlined you, what now?

Advertising? - Cut at your peril and make sure that you grab your share.

As a means of survival advertising is essential to any business even more so when times are hard. The upside is that in difficult trading environments even if you are selling less of your services/product you are capturing a bigger share of the available market as your competitors disappear which in the long-term and post credit-crunch will see your business in an overall position of strength.

There are many ways of advertising and some are more effective than others, we find that email flyers are a relatively cheap, eco-friendly and instant promotional vehicle, you should go through your own client database first, after all the best business is repeat business, you can also build a list from your website visitors to get your message out there.

Corporate literature is more available than ever before, the bad old days of minimum orders of 1000 is long gone, new digital presses offer high quality and low quantity with prices at the lowest levels for years.

for instance if you need a mailshot to 100 hand-picked clients then a full colour A4 2 sided flyer can be printed and sent in a couple of days for under £250.

Check your website, make sure it is working for you as hard as you work yourself, go to it now, think like a customer, is it friendly and helpful? If not think about how you would like it to work? to generate more interest in you as a company or to sell more products or both.

Special Offers - Everyone is doing it, why don't we?

What can you give that may tip the balance, nowadays everything is price-sensitive, so 10-20% off may just seal the deal, or perhaps 30-40% for a limited period on an end-of-line item. The important thing is that you get noticed and open a dialog with your customer.

Business promotion is a combination of advertising, corporate literature, coupled with an optimised website and well thought out special offers. we think that this increases your business recognition and sales and is an important part of any professional business.

The new business reality- Small is beautiful

noreply@blogger.com (daviesbatt) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:49:00 +0000

We have learned a few things recently from design guru Michael Peters, see designer breakfasts "a cataclysmic shake-up is forcing the design industry to reinvent itself"

“Clients, are sick and tired of the bullshit in our business. They want to connect around ‘the kitchen table’. They want the killer idea, not the Mayfair address. And I want creative people to be recognised as crucial cogs in the wheel of commerce. It has to be a partnership, not a client-servant relationship.”

In the new business reality we need business to business ties more than ever, if your overheads are down through shedding staff then so is your ability to fulfill orders, your options in this situation include outsourcing to a partner business or using freelance and short contract temporary workers on a per job basis. This keeps the costs low and the flexibility high.

At daviesbatt we use outsourced copywriters, web developers, market researchers and printers among others selected from a list of associates formed over many years in the industry.

This made us think, how we can help our clients to add value and open doors? We design their websites and send their email flyers, we drive the customers to them, what else can we do?

We need to promote our business too and our customers are our business.

We propose to put a new section on our website profiling our clients and their businesses, we will also produce an email flyer promoting this to our client base in the hope that the services each offers will be useful and productive to the others.

By promoting our customers on our website and not just referencing the designs but explaining what they do too, we hope that we can put our customers in touch with each other through a channel that is used only for our promotion at present. If we can drive extra business with minimal marketing spend, then everyone's a winner.

We think that this is the new reality, small is beautiful, small-scale marketing works, repeat business is the best business, productivity dependent on order book is the new 'just-in-time' business model and any other models are now looking rather outdated.

Times are hard and costs are critical:
We have a wealth of experience, over 30 years in the creative world and we are extremely cost-effective, our overheads are minimal; a few computers, a purpose built studio next to our home and our time.

Together with our creative and technical partners we are a forward thinking agency with the means of producing high quality design to the most exacting budget constraints.

exciting times ahead.

trendspotting: Downsizing discreetly - The incredible shrinking groceries

noreply@blogger.com (daviesbatt) — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 12:11:00 +0000

We have noticed a new sales & marketing trend we think is heading this way, in the USA it is sometimes referred as the 'grocery shrink ray'. Fran and I have spotted it over here in the past few weeks. (try google search)

It started with the scampi we ordered from Tesco online, it was the only substitution of the order, It was the same scampi by the same manufacturer at the same price. The reason for the substitution was that it contained 220g instead of 250g of breaded lobster tails or whatever scampi actually is.

Some weeks later I thought, Is it me? or does this cat food pouch feel smaller, it doesn't look smaller, same size outer box, same size pouch. However if I compare it with an older pack in the larder I find that we now have 85g instead of the usual 100g of succulent tasty cod. It was a half-price special though, so maybe i should be grateful for 85% @ 50% of cost, although when the offer ends we will not continue to buy that particular brand.

And as for crisps, don't get me started on crisps, apart from the 'Walkers crisps colour code" fiasco bags are getting emptier and 24g seems to be this years 25g.

What does this mean in the grand scheme of things?

If we are consumers, we need to look at every label with a proof-checkers eyes and an accountants mind, we really need to study the fine print like never before. If we still have a bargain, albeit for a limited launch period only we'll take that and move on to next promotion that is downsizing discreetly.

If we are a producer, we need to look even more closely at our rivals, are they using the grocery shrink ray and stealing a march on us?

Kind regards

Tony Batt

Open for business

noreply@blogger.com (daviesbatt) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 15:05:00 +0000

We would like to welcome you to daviesbatt design blog, over the past year Fran and I have been too busy to work on our own website, we have worked on plenty of others though, our website clients this year have been varied, we have had reworked sites that we originally built in 2001 - Gill Rees Consulting, and 2003 - Premier Banqueting, as well as creating original and fresh sites for both new and existing clients - The Orthodontic Practice, - TRACS Waste Management.

We have rebranded the DEA - an education charity that promotes global learning - and produced their annual report and prospectus 'Global Matters' in conjunction with the Guardian newspaper.
We also produced the branding for The Bickley a rather fine gastropub in chislehurst kent and rebranded the peartree group of companies.

Throw in the countless Adverts, catalogues, presentations and brochures we have also produced this year and it is no wonder we are looking forward to a nice christmas break.

Kind regards

Tony Batt

Hi, we are davies batt

noreply@blogger.com (daviesbatt) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 13:46:00 +0000

Hi, we are davies batt and we would like to let you know a little more about us.

Our creative director Fran Davies has over 20 years experience in the graphic design industry. Fran has a strong background in Branding, Advertising and Print literature, her previous clients are too many to mention with PC World, Manchester United FC and BT among them. Fran is the driving force of davies batt and has the final say on all things creative.

I am Tony Batt, production, websites and presentations, I have 12 years experience. I came into graphic design by the happy accident of discovering Apple computers at the same time as the dtp revolution was sweeping through the creative world. I am half-geek and proud of it. My previous clients include AIG, Comet, Carphone Warehouse, and The New Statesman.

We intend to use this blog to promote davies batt as a company and hopefully inform, amaze and amuse along the way.

Please have a look around the rest of the our site and let us know what you think

Kind regards
Tony Batt