Image/slide credits: Christopher Helm, HAWK Hildesheim, Möbelbau/Furniture.

Very different touch and feel from his last cover slide layout. More technical, slicker, smoother yet very minimal, as befitted the topic and the featured product.

Project presentation: Designing a multifunctional piece of furniture.

We had discussed the idea of starting with student’s own desk, and taking it from there and it worked nicely. The story line is perfectly simple. A desk is so much more than just a desk, but more often than not it is also cluttered. What would it take for a piece of furniture to take over three or more functions (chair, desk, shelf, ...) and clean up your act?

Comment: Transparent text fields are elegant and unobtrusive. I would suggest right-aligning text for an even neater look. And using SpellCheck :)

Slide and cut paper work: Nicole Kuhlmann, HAWK Hildesheim, 
Gestaltung/Grafikdesign.

Lovely example for a plain and simple cover slide that takes the audience by the hand and marches off, story telling: This is where we’ll go. No glamorous iStockphoto stuff. The digital divide has been crossed once again. Analog. Digital. Human. Good mix.

Paper cuts can be more than those cute Christmas figurines your mum made for you, or the cheap silhouettes you can still buy for a penny and a farthing at the fair, she says, and is oh so right, and it does not really matter which currency is yours.

I still remember those petrifying black on white session from years ago, and how my sister and I had to sit quite still, and how we were forced to smile, and how the smile never showed on black on white, and how I have hated paper cuts ever since as something dead and stiff. Until today.

And she brings samples, and they are handmade, unperfected, fuzzy at the edges, alive and kicking. I was getting impatient, she says. I could never sit still long enough for one of those fine, deep, bleeding cuts, she says. And I know exactly what she means, for words are just like that: They are always escaping that last smooth, perfect touch of the blade.

She brings hand outs, hand made, all different, yet all the same; one for each of us. I could cut only two in one go with a surgical scalpel, she says. And she makes her art come alive and vibrant, and she makes us hungry for more. And that is pretty much what I ask from a good talk at the end of a term.

Make. Me. Want. More.

And to make sure she does not stumble, she creates  an overview of her slides for herself, the last, best visual hope for a script I know: One image, one sentence, one story.

Thank you for a lovely talk!

 

Related links:

http://www.anastassia-elias.com

http://www.boveylee.com

The underlying themes in my cut paper works are power, sacrifice and survival.

Hina Aoyma Watch paper cut letters dance.

Karen Bit Vejle Norwegian paper cut tapestry, large scale.

“My heart and soul are at peace when I have the scissors in hand and the paper dances between the blades. If my scissors can manage to make you stop and wonder for just one instant, I will be happy.”

[Image credits: © All rights reserved 2011 Christoph Golombek, HAWK Hildesheim, Fakultät Gestaltung/Produktdesign. InDesign to PDF.]

Sweet visualization of color vision, rods, cones, and life on the retina in general. Of course, you need to imagine the text. It was all there. Lively, funny, visual. Reflection was demonstrated with a (yellow) banana.

Reduced to the max. Task was exactly that: Making things as easy as possible to understand.

Thanx for the little guys!

Schöne Visualisierung zum Thema Farbensehen: Stäbchen, Zäpfchen, Netzhaut. Auch ohne Text fast selbsterklärend. Reflektion wurde am lebenden Objekt (Banane, gelb) erklärt. Didaktische Reduktion erreicht.

Danke, dass ich die Folien hier einstellen darf und für die bunten Jungs.

Comments:

• Short and long wavelengths could be visualized accordingly.
• The net stocking pattern works lovely in German: Netzhaut. Net skin. [from retina: net like tunic], might be too subtle in other languages.
• I was worried yellow for the light sensitive rods would be too confusing and a light grey would be better. Audience said no, everything was crystal clear. Okay :) But I still imagine the rods pulling down small blinds when life gets too tough and bright.

Letzte Woche habe ich mir rund 55 studentische 3-Minuten-Präsentationen angesehen, alle zu einem freigewählten Thema aus dem Bereich Gestaltung. 

Last week I evaluated 55 talks and slide sets. The topic was design or design related. You choose means you cannot complain it’s a boring topic.

Eine davon ist hängen geblieben. Der schlichten Folien wegen. Der deutlichen Veränderung zur Vorwoche (Weg-vom-Ich-hin-zum-Thema) wegen. Der präzisen sprachlichen Ausgestaltung wegen.

One talk stuck a little more than the others. Because of the plain slides. Because of the striking change from me to topic. Because of the precise language.

Dieser Vortrag verwendet das Stilmittel der Metapher, die stärker und wirkungsvoller ist als der gängige Wie-Vergleich. Überlassen Sie den Wie-Vergleich ambitionierten 19-jährigen Jungautoren.

This talk uses metaphors, not similes. A DJ is... not: A DJ is like... Leave the simile to 19-year-old aspiring authors.

All images © Patrick Walton/HAWK Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen, Fakultät Gestaltung

• All slides ballpoint pen scribbles, scanned, postproduction in Photoshop.
• Idea: Using a familiar concept and putting it into a new context, enhancing meaning.
• Black background resembles vinyl.
• White scribbles resemble scratches on records.
• White font: Boston Traffic, 36 pt. Stamp like, as term DJ has been stamped/coined as something new.

Slides/Script (slightly edited)

The DJ as we all know him. But DJ is just a term, a phrase, an image.

A DJ is also a juggler. He creates a musical rhythm and flow to which people move.

A DJ is a mathematician. He adds up music and records and finds new solutions.

A DJ is a social worker. He communicates and creates relationships, sharing his records.

A DJ is an emotion designer. He creates a love brand, he thinks of and about his audience, he makes people happy. He creates a composition that touches peoples’ emotions.

A 3-minute presentation is like a single. It is over after one song, even if you would have liked to hear more.

Another Say No To PowerPoint Week almost over. For a few years now, the week before Valentine’s Day goes slideless. Everyone should go slideless, now and then.

As will you.

When you attend one of my presentation classes or workshops next term, as every term, we will start from scratch.

No slides. Just you. And the audience.

Learning how to present well is like making risotto, I find. Quite a stirring process, and you add the ingredients one by one. Slides are the parmigiano on top. Added last. Or left away altogether. Why don’t you try some fresh herbs instead?

My favorite color tool apart from Digital Color Meter on the Mac is still Adobe’s KULER. Upload last year’s winter, choose color points and download swatch file (.ase) into Photoshop (Elements).

Or just browse online and fall in love with the names of palettes alone. How sweet are Dusty Caramels?

 

Other useful color sites:

• Color Scheme Designer

If you are not afraid of terms like monochromatic, analogic, complimentary, split complementary, triadic, and double contrast try

• http://websitetips.com/colortools/
• including Eric A. Meyer’s marvellous Color Blender

Come here often to check out if your green is my green or anyone else’s gray.