Dear Colleagues, The International Institute for Information Design and Swinburne University of Technology Faculty of Design have released a free digital edition of PowerNotes by Per Mollerup. In a world that suffers from cognitive overload, too much and too badly organized information, simplicity is more important than ever. PowerNotes presents simple, but powerful, principles for planning, design, and delivery of slide presentations. Download available at this URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.3/191214 Media release with description appears below. Ken Friedman Professor Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | University Distinguished Professor | Dean, Faculty of Design | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia | kenfriedman@groupwise.swin.edu.au | Ph: +61 3 9214 6078 | Faculty www.swinburne.edu.au/design -- Improve presentations with PowerNotes Professor Per Mollerup has produced a guide to help presenters create professional looking slide presentations. PowerNotes covers the planning, design and delivery of a slide presentation and offers practical tips for improving presentations. "We've all endured mediocre visual presentations in classrooms, lectures and conferences with presenters delivering slide presentations that bear all the hallmarks of poor design thinking." Mollerup said. "The fact behind this sad state of affairs is that many professional lecturers and other speakers have never come to terms with slide presentations based on software like PowerPoint and Keynote. According to Mollerup, most presenters give presentations that don't make the most of the educational potential of the speech-plus-visuals format. "They give presentations where the visual part is not coordinated with the spoken part, in fact where the visual part is directly counterproductive to the spoken part. As a result, they don't present themselves and their subject to their best." Mollerup said that once you understand the rules, you can bend them. "Professional opera singers sometimes turn their back to the audience, sometimes lie down, or even eat, while singing. In the same way, skilled presenters occasionally bend some of the otherwise sensible recommendations presented in PowerNotes. That is their professional prerogative, earned by talent and practice, lots of practice. Everybody should learn the rules before breaking them." -- Per Mollerup is Professor of Communication Design at Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia. He has written a number of books on design including: Marks of Excellence, the history and taxonomy of Trademarks; Collapsibles, A Design Album of Space-Saving Objects and Wayshowing, A Guide to Environmental Signage, Principles and Practices.