I believe this is at least the second time I've had to consider the question of presentation design, not counting about six years about learning and refining the craft of the brief. Many an evening has been spent slinging letters, clip art, and non-copyrighted images into countless slides, and I can say that formed my own thoughts on good slide design.
At the very least, I'm on board with avoiding the most egregious errors of making presentations, namely to make the slides the absolute focus of the presentation, creating walls of text that mirror your own words, and failing to consider the slides from the perspective of the audience. Of course, something that I've learned is important and that I continue to refine is my individual skills as a briefer in terms of appropriate body language and motions, eye contact, and aspects of speech such as enunciation, projection, and speed. Something I've done to help with this is try and "act" like a briefer, with a set of lines and motions to follow on the stage made of my presentation and the room I'm in. I'm not sure if there's any particular protocol on this, but it seems to have made the difference more than once even given vanilla slide design.
Having said that, what we've learned in Garr Reynold's writings on Presentation Zen is certainly worth integrating more not just into my coursework, but also in my daily work. The example slides were, in concept, very simple, but following the prescribed practices made them look infinitely more professional, and create significantly more stage presence than slides of a more generic appearance. There were also some finer details I wouldn't have considered, such as using a consistent theme but making minor adjustments, as Reynolds noted in his example with the red bar and paperclip motif. I also appreciate that he emphasized the idea that slides are only part of the equation, and that he mentioned some of the same things I learned in school about speaking, appropriate motions, and so on. In short, I felt he was advocating a relatively simple but thoughtful and detail oriented approach to presentations, one that also respects the relationship and holistic results of presenter and presentation.
What I would like to find out, and perhaps I'll read deeper into his website, is how exactly he makes those slides that jump off the page so well. It doesn't seem like something easily executed with off the shelf PowerPoint template solutions, and some of what he does with blending images into backgrounds looks like it would require either his own stock of images or a certain amount of photo editing. I did try to integrate his style into my work with Prezi, but running off of the templates and trying to match pre-licensed images as well made this task easier said than done. Results with PowerPoint also seems to vary greatly, based on what I've seen in the last week or so of slides at work. Some people followed the principles very well, and others were more typical.
To bottom line this, there are definitely techniques to be learned, and tools to be practiced. But there is no doubt that seemingly small details can make a big difference when combined with an effective speaker.
References
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). Presentation Zen: How to Design & Deliver Presentations Like a Pro. In Garr Reynolds Official Site. Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/pdf/presentation_tips.pdf
Reynolds, G. (n.d.). The Big Four: Contrast, Repetition, Alignment, Proximity. In Presentation Zen. Retrieved July 18, 2012, from http://www.presentationzen.com/chapter6_spread.pdf
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