20 Questions: No Script, No Mercy

PK: eight hours, is would it be eight hours, Emma? That's that's pretty quick. That's definitely a professional's
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah.
PK: work, right? Getting th that many slides done that quickly.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, I mean that's a ridiculous timeline.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. It depends what you're working with, but yeah.
Andy Bundock: I hate those requests. We need it tomorrow. It's half past four.
PK: So
Mark: Yeah, exactly.
PK: so mm.
Mark: We sleep too. One of one of the things I was gonna say was I have had select decks where it's been a polish. Have you had one of those? So you're not building
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, just t tidy up.
Mark: from scratch. You get given thirty and then you just gotta make I'm not gonna say better, I'm gonna say less shit. I've had that before.
PK: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Mm.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: And it's like try and get towards the template, try and get some nice images in And then those are sometimes a lot shorter. But I think yeah, from scratch I think even from scratch, sorry, even the day is is it's quite quick Emma. That's that's that's a lot.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. From scra yeah. Not from scratch, no.
Mark: No.
PK: No. Well so I I as an in-house designer used to have to complete two decks a day. So I I would have to get one done in four hours ever
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Wow.
PK: i ev every day. So sometimes I would get one that I didn't need that much work so I could spend an hour on it. And then other times I'd get a a deck that needed sixteen hours, so I'd have to work two days and hope that the next deck that I got only needed an hour or something like that. So I used to have to I used to have to get them done in four hours. You know, by the
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Amazing.
PK: end of the week I had to have my ten decks completed, as an in house designer.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: And did you have a good template PK that you were working with at least as like a sort of library of layouts
PK: It it was a good
Emma | Birdbox Designs: and things like that?
PK: that's a really good question. It was a really good template, but I don't think any template has every different
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No.
PK: way a presenter's gonna wanna provide their information. So so
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Sure.
PK: yes, I mean a good template is really important. I actually came up with a system so I could get them done in in as little as thirty minutes. I the fastest I ever completed a deck was thirty-seven minutes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: W
Mark: That's crazy.
PK: And I actually have
Andy Bundock: Yeah, that's crazy.
PK: a video recording of of that. And so so but that was purely out of necessity. It's like I had to learn,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: had to come up with a system where we just figured out where the key points were, figured out what were the data points, the word, the the image or whatever that would get that across, and then you just drop that onto a slide. and embed the rules around the template that that Emma was was talking about. Andy, you're you're up for the next question. Are you ready?
Andy Bundock: please make it a
Emma | Birdbox Designs: drum roll.
Andy Bundock: good one PK, make it one I can answer.
PK: Here we go. So what was the least amount of time you were allowed to complete an edit? Not a deck, but an edit.
Andy Bundock: Cool.
PK: Have you ever been at an event and they've got, you know, like five slides you gotta do in in five minutes or something like that?
Andy Bundock: well, okay. Now you've used this clear defined differentiation here. At event, as opposed to creating a deck within a corporate environment. Now we've all been there on a Friday afternoon when the account director comes in and says, well. here's 30 slides and we're off to the pub, but we we're gonna present with it tomorrow morning You're okay to finish it off now. You know what? find me my mobile mobile number, right? You know, and that will be the fastest time you're ever gonna complete an edit because I want to go to the pub, too
Mark: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: I love it.
Andy Bundock: However now you've brought in the event situation is a very very different set of rules, right? I mean, I was at is on site at the conference for eBay, the polling tool that we were using. Now, if you got a percentage to succeed, this is much better. They just hold up cards, don't they? hold up, you know, the card, is it red or green? And everyone goes, it's roughly this. It's so much easier than get your phone out,
PK: There's a there's a reason for that, yeah.
Andy Bundock: the QR code and everybody like, and then the next slide, it would show the results. That catastrophically failed. just before the event and
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: we're on to the support guys and they're like, I don't know. It's like, great. So we're to remake about a dozen slides using their tool. And that was the quickest edits, not our complete deck. We're about to remake every single slide. We had all the... right tools there, but we had to use their tools and then reformat it to make it look like the rest of the deck. And I'm like, jabbing away like, Christ almighty.
PK: My goodness.
Andy Bundock: And actually, funny enough, the rest of the team were in the hotel bar going, you know where to find us, so it was no different.
Mark: it always thing.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Well, I was gonna add one, but it mine wasn't measured in time, it was measured in distance. So I was in a taxi with the team over to onto to going to a pitch, and the deck was
Andy Bundock: you
Emma | Birdbox Designs: really not very ready at all. There was like missing headshots and names and who was gonna deliver the the the pitch and it was just it was all carnage. So yeah, literally laptop on the on the lap, in the taxi, whumming along, and yeah. So the lesson of the story for me was make sure you've got an off offline version of what you're going to use so you're not reliant on Wi-Fi or connectivity or
Mark: That's
Emma | Birdbox Designs: anything like that. and obviously you know make sure you've got your fonts and your images stored locally on your machine. So it all it all worked in the end and we delivered a very polished pitch. So it was fine.
Mark: like that. And did they win the pitch?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, yeah, yep.
Mark: No awesome.
PK: Way to go. Nicely done.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, great.
PK: Nicely up next up is Mark. Here's your question. What are
Mark: Nervous.
PK: what are the most styles you've you've put into a presentation template? Ooh. Could be a dirty little secret
Mark: that's
PK: here, I don't know.
Mark: That's a very handy question.
PK: Yeah.
Mark: actually there's one I've just built. and I can't say the client.
Andy Bundock: Hahaha!
Mark: but they designed it. So the client designed it all in Figma. They're a design branding agency for a big corporate. and then they want it converted into Google Slides and Keynote. and they had no less than 300 template styles. doubled up into Google Slides and into Keynote and it needed to be pixel perfect across everything. So
Emma | Birdbox Designs: H one, my goodness.
Mark: quite a lot
Andy Bundock: Wow.
Mark: of back and forth. And while I admire the intent, I just don't know who's going to use 300 templates. You're going to get you're going to see that as an end user and you're going to be like, where do I even start? And but you know,
Andy Bundock: Yeah, no, that'd be cool.
PK: Which one?
Mark: fair play, they've covered every single variation. And I guess their thought was a lot of this stuff is pre done. So the end user can just grab it and shove it in rather than, you know, sift their way through and then add their content. A lot of this stuff is like, you know, different backgrounds that are approved and and all that stuff. So yeah, interesting.
PK: Mean that's that's taking plug and play to a whole new level. I
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: I can't even imagine. Gosh.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. I mean
Mark: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: the count does always sort of rack up a bit when you've you know, you've got different colours, different bac you know, you you're gonna have a certain amount because of that, aren't you? And left aligned, right aligned and all of that. But that's yeah, that's another level, Mark.
Andy Bundock: Hmm.
Mark: I I think what they were thinking was rather than, you know, where when you get like an approved image library, like a a dam, a digital asset management system, I think they wanted to kind of skip that step. And so one of the slides, for example, was just the company name on a background ten times with different
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
Mark: approved imagery. So save
PK: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mark: in the end user from going to the image library, right clicking, change background, blah, blah, blah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
Mark: It's just like I'll pick this colour today, I'll pick that colour today. But but my experience
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, I've done similar.
Mark: with that is that everybody picks their favorite like five slides and just uses them again and again and again and again and it's like all that
Andy Bundock: Yeah, now you're right.
Mark: work and all that minute detail, but you know, ours is not the reason why.
PK: Yeah, I I I had
Andy Bundock: I've had similar with clients before and then they've gone through all that and then the next time they briefed me was like, yeah, we want to simplify it all down now because not everyone uses the same half dozen.
Mark: Yeah.
PK: Yeah, god, I got I got a tough one here. Pr presentation design
Andy Bundock: I've this one, was dreading this one!
PK: disappeared disappeared tomorrow. What would you miss
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Mm.
PK: the most? my god.
Mark: The money.
PK: The money. just sometimes the money. not always though. that's that's part of being freelance, right? I think you know, I think the thing that I would miss the most is just all the great people that I get to work with. I mean, as a freelancer I get to work with so many different people and and I have I I I I probably jinx myself by saying this, but I think I have the best frickin' clients and and have some of the best colleagues. job I'm working on now, they're just really, really sweet people and they're Like going out of the way to make sure that I've got everything that I need to to to to get the work done, et cetera. So yeah, I think i is is that too schmaltzy to say? I think I would I I w I would miss the people,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No, how about that?
Mark: They oaks.
PK: but yeah.
Andy Bundock: It's not it's a difficult. It's
Mark: Bit of an offer acceptance fee.
Andy Bundock: a difficult question to answer I mean, there's so many like it's nothing tangible you can grab hold of it But but I was looking at I'm thinking how would I answer that and I'll probably answer in a similar way, but actually You ever you've ever heard if you've ever heard me say this There's always a Scott from sales that just won't use the damn template you created for them, right? right,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha.
Andy Bundock: but The other end of the spectrum is,
PK: Scott.
Andy Bundock: right? The other end of the spectrum is there's one guy who really wasn't getting on with the template you created, but then goes away and makes something beautiful based on something you've given them in the toolkit, unprompted, and you look at it and go, well, none of that's what I gave you to, you went away and took what we created for you and then went away and did something with it. That, that for me was like, my work here is done. It's like
Mark: Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: Yeah. That's nice.
Andy Bundock: job satisfaction, but that's the complete opposite from Scott from sales. Scott, if you're listening.
PK: Yeah, We're gonna go to the next section here: best and worst vibe. First up is is Emma again. You you ready, Emma? Here we go? Okay.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I'm ready.
PK: So the question is, what is your favorite thing and least favorite thing about presentation design? So what what do you kind of similar to the last question, but what do? Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, I was just gonna say, yeah, similar to what you've kind of said. so favourite thing, yeah, kind of s the solving that puzzle, I suppose, and it's probably loads of things, but most people when you mention slides or PowerPoint, they kind of go, you know, th they either love it or they hate it. It's a bit like marmite. And kind of changing seeing that transformation like you were talking about, Andy, and someone who's used it knows how good it can be and gets some a good result because The reason why we use PowerPoint and Slides is to communicate something that gets you an outcome that you're looking for. That's the reason. You know, we have fun with it, we're creative with it, but at the end of the day, you're using it for a purpose. And I suppose that's my favorite thing is kind of delivering something that not only looks good, might be a bit different, something that they hadn't really expected, a bit on that creativity side, but something that gives them confidence to kind of go and get whatever they're looking for, whether it's, you know, nail that. meeting because they've got to present to the board or whether it's a pitch or a keynote, anything that they're doing. Yes, that's my favorite bit, I think. And and you know, remembering to ask them how it went and telling me how it went, I like that. I like that bit about it.
PK: Love that.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: My least favorite, I'm probably gonna say like version control. You know.
PK: Yes. Ouch.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Getting it and it's n now you you know you can tell by the file name, it's like version eight, final, use this one, not this one, this one, yeah, version two. but that's that's the funny answer. But the real answer is probably, and I think I mentioned it in one of my other answers, is getting involved too late is my least favorite thing. So coming in towards the end and thinking that
Andy Bundock: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you're just gonna fix it because you're good at what you do and you've produced some good stuff before, but you
PK: Amen.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: know. it we w should be involved early on in the in the discussions, in the planning, in the storyboarding, in the content.
PK: Yes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: so yeah.
Mark: Yeah, absolutely.
Andy Bundock: yes, yes. Definitely.
PK: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Amen to that one. We're we're all raising our hands on that one.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, totally.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. But the fix of version control is that there are other tools that fix that. So you've got like live collaboration in Google Slides and things like that. So there are fixes to some of these things that I don't like about presentation design.
PK: Okay, next up we've got Andy, your question is, what's the most unnecessary animation you've ever seen? I think I think we I think we've all seen one of those unnecessary
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I love this question.
Andy Bundock: I was hoping I wouldn't get this one.
PK: animations.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I love it.
Andy Bundock: I was hoping I wouldn't get this one. Right.
PK: Do you want to pass?
Andy Bundock: I
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Is he gonna start a rant, guys?
Andy Bundock: think, no, no, I don't think I'm gonna start a rant, but I think I'm gonna get a resonance. It has to be clippy. The little paper clip that used to come up. It looks like you're going to type a Fuck off.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha ha.
Andy Bundock: That used to knock on the screen. And I can help
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: you with that. It's like, no one ever. clicked on the damn clippy animation that just got in your way. That used to really, really upset me. So, that's your answer. The most unnecessary animation you've ever seen. That's the comedy answer.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I love it.
PK: I like it. But but now it in term
Andy Bundock: When I first started at the same place where Scott works, right, you're listening Scott, right.
PK: Scoop.
Andy Bundock: I needed to create a template for them. is kind of how I into this business, how I got into this side of design, this design discipline is very much down to them, because I needed to whip them into shape in terms of what the quality output was, what good is, what good looks like. But then they had all of these bouncing, you can make something bounce onto the screen. Like, just if you've ever had eye fatigue, and they had the world, they a software firm that had the most complicated charts you've ever possibly seen, and then bounced them all onto the screen, and you're like,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Chao.
Andy Bundock: stop doing that right now. Like.
PK: A chart a ch a chart that bounces, that's gotta be that's gotta be the worst. That's gotta be the worst ever. I've never heard of such a thing.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: devastating that. That was medical.
Andy Bundock: No, it was mainly tables, workflow, like workflow, like the whole screen was just full of things that we're going to, this is the workflow. And each time they clicked on the next stage, it would bounce onto the screen. And I thought it was cool. You're like, stop that right now. If you have to reveal it, or it's good you reveal it, but just do a simple fade because you're making me want to throw up.
Mark: Hola. I used to have decks and I used to have to I think like it's common in America to call them Franken decks, you know, where there's like different departments
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: all put into one big one. And the bloody sales team, again, Scots and Dave's I call mine Dave in my like fantasy villain, they'd always be like dropping anvils and like spoon and fire. And it's like, guys, we know
PK: Ha ha.
Mark: you were impressed with your sales, we love it. But Come on, it's like minimal clean. Let's go with that, please. Yeah. Love the animation.
PK: Absolutely.
Andy Bundock: Well, was like Nolan mentioned on his talk at Present to Succeed. If you think it looks cool, cut it.
PK: Yes. Yes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes. So so I heard a good thing. It was and it said animation on slides is like seasoning. A little can make the whole thing a lot better, but if you put too much
Mark: I think.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: and that's all that anybody remembers. So the bouncing chart is just too far, Addie.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah, that's a brilliant brilliant analogy.
PK: I love that. I love that.
Mark: Right. I'm gonna see.
Andy Bundock: I love that
PK: That's perfect. Okay. next up we've got Mark. Here's your question. You ready?
Mark: Yep, bring it.
PK: What was the best reaction that you ever received from a client?
Mark: think it probably goes along the lines of what Emma was talking about, you know, and asking them how they've done, and all the clients that have won the pitch have been like super stoked at sort of my part in the process. Obviously, what we do isn't everything, it's the it's the presentation skills, it's the research, it's everything like that. But if they've got a really nice tight deck. That's the one thing they usually can't do. And so that's that jigsaw piece that goes into the puzzle. So yeah, quite a lot of clients who've actually won the pitch have been super grateful. And it just makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside that you've helped them achieve their goals sort of thing.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, you added value and it might have been the slimmest
PK: Love it.
Andy Bundock: of margins that made them remember the deck that you'd put together that when they came to make the decision they were like, yeah, I like those guys. And it might be the
PK: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: finest tiniest margin. I think my best reaction I ever had was prior to being a presentation designer, I was a digital designer and a creative agency. We put a pitch together. for it wasn't new business, we were the incumbent, but we needed to get them to buy into it to unlock the funds to make it happen. We came up with all the best animations and rollovers, it's just going back to the days when we used to do flash websites, flash elements on websites, something like that. It's a long time ago now. Now, I am. they asked us to pitch, we rehearsed, rehearsed, rehearsed, and we got it so slick, and we did the demo of what it's gonna look like and what have you, and they said, great, go away and build it. And we're like, I actually said to her, I said to the CEO, don't you want to argue first? And the art director kicked me under the table and I was like, I physically moved and she burst out laughing. You said, no, we love it. Love it. Go away and build it. And I was like, how many times, that's the first and last time that's ever happened to me. Never happened since, right?
Mark: Amazing.
Andy Bundock: How many times have you put three options together? One, quite clearly for them to shoot down in flames. We're not buying that. And then they take, The first half of one concept and the second half of another and they're sort of mushing together into a Franken concept and you're thinking, okay, you've just destroyed two concepts and mushed together something that doesn't really work and now we've got to go away and make that happen. Most of the time that happens a lot in creative pitches. But for them to say, no, go away, we love it, go away and build it, I was absolutely shocked, I'd never had that before or since. By far the best reaction I've ever had. And funny enough.
PK: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: We got that, we nailed that because it was a four week campaign. We got target figures in week one. Then the following, the subsequent figures after that, we hit 300 % of target figures. So they fired us. It was one of those
PK: It's a good thing.
Andy Bundock: situations where the global team have decided they're going to give the global account to another global agency. We were the London branch of that global account. and they said, we're really sorry. We were dealing with Melbourne and they said, we're really sorry, we have no choice. And they took us out to dinner and got us really drunk and said, sorry, we've got to say goodbye. So it was just like,
Mark: Yeah.
PK: So my my question up next, let's see what I get. Best event location that you never got to experience.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: DJ, come on.
PK: I I okay. Yeah, I d I have a lot of I I have a lot of
Andy Bundock: no, was coming.
PK: event event stories. I think I've shared this one with you guys before, but no no one will have heard this, but I was flown to Barcelona for for ten days and at a very, very fancy hotel in in in Barcelona which had a knockout spa and all all the rest of it. And those ten days I got out out of the hotel for a total of I think ninety minutes. I could have been in Cincinnati. N not not not dissing Cincinnati, but I I could have been anywhere other than Barcelona. Because I I did get out for Tapas for about thirty minutes and then I s I saw some flamenco, about forty-five minutes of flamenco, and walked the streets a bit. And and literally for ninety minutes is all I got out of the hotel for those ten days. And then I got in
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
PK: a taxi cab and and and flew back. And and I was just I was just crestfallen. But there were so many last minute changes from the CEO of the sales pitch that we were doing. I was up. all all manner of hours and there were lots of other things that happened on that story but we we won't go through that. But yeah, being flown to Barcelona and not getting out to enjoy it was th that was my my least enjoyable e experience being flown to a r a great location. So
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Sounds glamorous on paper.
Andy Bundock: I can relate to that. This year alone I've gone to Dubrovnik but not seen Dubrovnik. I've seen a very nice hotel and I've gone to Rome and I've seen a very nice hotel. Lovely, beautiful, marble everywhere. It was lovely. Did I get the seat of it? No. Although I did
PK: How how how many times
Andy Bundock: get out to... I got my kids some... Is it Legami? The pens?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: the stationary, yeah, legami.
Andy Bundock: Stationary like there was a shop there was a shop right next written next to the hotel and I went I'll grab that that's about as far Yeah
PK: I mean, how
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Good
PK: many times
Emma | Birdbox Designs: luck.
PK: have have you done an event job where you go in for rehearsals at five AM and then you don't get out until like eight or nine PM? And so you never see the light of day for a week or two weeks or something like that. It's like
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Really not good for you, is it?
Andy Bundock: No.
PK: my god, it's not good. It it isn't and you're eating chicken every day. They feed you chicken every day or so
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha ha
PK: or or s something like that. But anyway, chicken and pasta.
Andy Bundock: It's the same set menu hotel food.
PK: Yes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I would be useless with that as well.
PK: Okay, next up the next section is trade secrets. And Emma, you're up first. Let's see what question you get here.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Okay.
PK: What's the one thing every presenter needs? Ooh, this'll this'll be good. What do you think they need, every presenter?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: one thing every presenter needs. This is on the presenter side of things.
PK: Yeah. I know I
Mark: I've got one on the... ...heater hounds.
PK: I can think of I got one as well. Go ahead, Emma.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Okay, I think I might go a bit present to succeed style-y and go with some C's. Shall I do that? So first
PK: Nice.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: comes to mind is clarity. So being really clear what you're saying, who
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you're saying it to and what result you want. just like laser laser clarity on everything, why you're doing it, who you're doing it to, what you want from it. And then I think confidence. Everyone talks about being a confident presenter, but I think that comes naturally because you've worked on getting your message clear, make sure your deck is, you're confident with that. Even if it's like you like clicks, you don't like clicks, you know, you like, you know, don't read it, practice all of that kind of stuff. I think that confidence comes from all of that kind of prep. And then I need to think of a third C. Yeah. So once you've done that, maybe let's, let's use connection. So having that connection with your audience. So do all your prep work beforehand so that when you're standing up there delivering, whether it be a sort of a deck to a board meeting, because it's an important decision that you need, or you're standing on a deck full of, you know, a room full of thousands of people, you feel confident and you can work on delivering your message and having that connection. So I think it's all that prep work. And I think that's what we do. We help you do all of that at the beginning so that you feel confident to stand up there and you can make that connection because that's that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to connect with the people we're talking to and try and get, you know, a result from it, whether it be them to change what they think or how they feel or whether you want them to sign on a nice juicy tender or pitch or something. Yeah, you know, making that connection. So there you go. I did three C's.
PK: Nice.
Andy Bundock: Well done. Well done.
PK: You got my C? go ahead. Go ahead, Mark.
Mark: I've got another C. my C is
Emma | Birdbox Designs: good.
Mark: a bloody clicker.
PK: What's
Andy Bundock: Hahaha!
Mark: You've to a clicker. So it's ABC,
PK: You need to
Mark: bloody clicker, because that's one of the whole reasons that we named our podcast Next Slide Please is because it
Andy Bundock: Completely.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: never be a feature of any presentation that somebody says to some poor minion,
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: Next Slide Please. It's like, click your own bloody slides and then you can control the flow and not distract the audience.
Andy Bundock: One of the first conversations we had, Mark, you and I, and how we landed on Next Live Please, it's like, just give him a bloody clicker. That was the Chris Witty thing. Next Live Please was all through COVID.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes. Yeah.
Andy Bundock: That's how we landed on
PK: I love that.
Andy Bundock: the name for this, the whole damn podcast. Just
PK: I love that.
Andy Bundock: give him a clicker.
PK: That's that's
Mark: it.
PK: great. And and Emma, when you talk you you grabbed my you did a beautiful job with you one of the C's that I wanna share, which is confidence. And and I think being confident often comes from being excited to share your deck. So if you hire a presentation designer and gonna do a plug for us, that is a good chance you're gonna feel a lot more excited and more confident about delivering what you've got because you're really excited to share it. So
Andy Bundock: And on that, just to pick up on that PK, if you're not a confident presenter, most of us aren't, right? Let's be honest, right? We're not confident presenters. We have to learn how to do it. Some people, annoyingly, just stand up and just own the room, and you're like, how are you doing that? Just how are you doing that? So, how do you compensate for that? Well, you get a good deck, practice the hell out of it. If you've got
Mark: Yes.
Andy Bundock: that... You have to remember what is your desired outcome and work back from that. And if you've not got the clear points, pick up on Emma's point, the clarity, those clear points defined, you're not going to get the decision. So work back from your desired outcome, get those points on there clearly, give yourself the confidence by breaking those down into incisable chunks that is compelling and memorable. If you've got that, you can work through those steps that you've practiced if you're not a confident presenter. and you will get through like those annoying people that can just stand up and talk.
Mark: Yeah, I'm
PK: Love it.
Mark: conscious saying this in another episode, but confidence, you're right, Andy, to some people, it's annoyingly just a bit of a gift. And I worked with some amazing people where they're just kind of like instant sort of soundbite people and they just, you know, don't do anything. But most confidence just knows from knowing your content so well. And practice,
Andy Bundock: Yeah, yeah.
Mark: practice. And even you're like Steve Jobs, who seemed so off the cuff and, you know, the super presenter. A lot of it was through like, practising it so well, he knew it inside out, and so he wasn't flustered by anything, and then that makes you appear confident, even if deep down you're really not.
Andy Bundock: But I think also on that, it's down to passion and vision. And you talk to any founder about this, right? You've got a passion to fix something. The industry, I mean, is broken. It's not working. don't get, this is frustrating me. I need to fix this. That drives you to make a project or a product, sorry, that you can see a gap and it drives you insane that, why can't nobody else see this? Right, I have to fix this. generally how a good product becomes a great product that everyone buys into because you can see a gap and go, everyone should buy into this. can't nobody else see it? So you go driving towards making that happen. And that's how a lot of people can come across confident is because they're really passionate about making this happen. And you can pick up on it. You can see when someone really wants you to to buy into their product. And chances are if you can see where they're coming from and go, you know what, that's really good, I should get one of those, that's going to solve a problem for me. You're on to a winner.
PK: Mark, your question is what's one thing you obsess over audiences never notice? Is there anything you you obsess over that nobody notices?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Tight face.
PK: I'm sure there there's lots of things we obsess over, right?
Mark: I like I've got a list as long as my arm.
Andy Bundock: I
PK: Ha ha ha ha.
Mark: Think the main thing just off top of my head is position of things. I have it in my head and audiences may not notice or care about this, but in my head, if the logo is one pixel higher on this slide and two pixels lower on the third slide, that would do my head in and distract me from the main content. So whether it's 300 templates, like we just talked about, or whether it's a 300 slide deck and it's a half a flippin' terabyte or whatever, one of the last things I'll do is go through and make sure everything is in the right position on every slide because it kills me if it's not. I think that's what I want an AI to do. I'm probably sure it's there already, but that's one of my final, but
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: like a last check is like, you've done all this beautiful content, you've thought about the narrative. You you've added whiz-bang stuff, but for me, if the logo or the... Even just like, know those little... Sometimes you don't use a logo and you need to leave the company name down at the bottom, but even if that's like one pixel up, it like, I see it and it gives me the ick and I need to get in there and fix that. I think that's probably my answer.
Andy Bundock: Well, it's not just that, it's distracting for the audience because they're not concentrating on you. They're looking out for the next time it moves up and down from one to the other. The fix on that, course, BrightSlide in the legacy goals.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, it does that well.
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Make sure that's turned on. Right click, copy and paste position. Kills that dead.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Absolutely smashes that out of the park. If you've not got BrightSlide, your master pages should do all this for you. but we all know they mess up from time to time, right? So, you've not got that,
PK: I think
Andy Bundock: right slide, right click, copy and paste position, and just go through every deck and make sure that they're all in position, because you're right, Mark. When you've seen it once, next time the slide changes, you're like, did that move?
PK: I I th I think
Mark: And mainly it's only us four, maybe it's not the audience.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: But but but I I think I think even if if an somebody in the audience doesn't notice it, you know, catch it with their eye, they will pick up on it subliminally. That that sort
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, yes.
PK: of thing, things moving, things out of place, a color that's shifted very ever so slightly. You you know, one one green got shifted in in hue
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: or value or something like that. People pick up on that even even subliminally, I I I would argue anyway. That's
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Definitely. And it's removing
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: And the
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: subliminal thing, the subliminal thing, that casts
Emma | Birdbox Designs: that cognitive friction, isn't it?
Andy Bundock: doubt and the moment you've got the tiniest, tiniest amount of doubt, let's not forget, most of the time you're going in that room or you're on that stage to get your message across and get a decision. And if they've got a tiniest inkling of doubt, that decision's not coming straight away.
PK: True. Okay. My question up next, what do I get? I got what's the presentation rule you break all the time because it actually works? Okay, I
Andy Bundock: Hahaha!
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No.
PK: I I love this one. Having
Andy Bundock: You
PK: things aligned like Mark was talking about is really important, but sometimes things look better just slightly out of of center or slightly moved up or down, left or right or whatever. I think it has to do with that golden rule. You know, we may
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: lay things out as a grid, but sometimes there's a shape or there's a pattern that's that's created on the page, and things just look a little bit better if you move them around. So I'm I'm always, if to Mark's question, I'm always moving things around just ever so slightly to get them in align like he does, but also sometimes to move them out of alignment because they're just a little bit better. out of alignment sometimes, you know, a little bit of extra space at the bottom of the page, all of that sort of stuff.
Mark: Yeah, absolutely.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I love that.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, couldn't agree more. And sometimes, like, if you may change the, paragraph space on some text or, line height and what have you, at, if you've got some very, very big text, mathematically, it shifts within the box. So you need to nudge it so that it's on the guidelines, not mathematically in the right position because
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: your audience is not going to view that slide with a ruler. They're going to use their eyes. So you need to use yours.
Mark: Optical nudging, love it. I love that we're going there. I feel
PK: Good good point. Good point.
Mark: like we could just talk about this for hours without any audience. Let's just talk.
PK: So
Mark: God.
PK: so I I think that brings us yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I've got one rule that I know it always break as well because I think some of the listeners will hear lots of tips on like, you know, how many slides to have and like, you how long it should take to go through one slide and this and that. And I think they're all good. They're all good starting points, but I never count slides. I feel like if you can split up something into three slides or two slides, that's better than trying to cram everything in because you're like, I only need 10 slides because that's what somebody said I should have. So I think the rule around number of slides for a deck, given a pitch or whatever you're doing, I think I often break that.
Mark: The only thing
Andy Bundock: Yeah, agreed.
Mark: I've said to that is, and I don't think I've broken this one, but I always try to stick to one idea per slide.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Hmm.
Mark: Like so, if it gives you some content to work on and they've got three ideas, then absolutely to your point, split it out.
PK: we are on to the final round. This is the quick fire round. This r this round is a it's ARB binary. and we're gonna follow the same same path. It's gonna be Emma, Mark, Andy, and then me. so first up, Emma, are you ready for your ARB your binary question?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I don't know, yes I am.
PK: Okay, let's see what you get. Template or blank slide. Ooh, that's that's a That's a that's a tough one 'cause it depends on the use case, right? But
Andy Bundock: Thoughts is for courses surely.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Is it my template? Okay, sorry, quick fire. I'm going to go template, template, template.
PK: Yes. Let's let's nice. Most of the time it's template, right? But but when
Andy Bundock: I think so.
Mark: Yeah.
PK: when when would you d I mean do you use blank slides when you're when you're building your own presentations?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah? Yeah, Yeah.
PK: mean I do all the time, I have to admit. I guess my my my my template may not be up to snuff then, right? Maybe my template's just maybe my template's really naff, I don't know.
Andy Bundock: It depends on the job, Pico. I hate you, Pico. You're making me choose.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I'm not gonna lie. No, no, I'd have to use a blank one for yours. Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Is it my template? Love that answer!
PK: Okay. It could be my template. Okay, Andy, you're up next. You ready? Here's
Andy Bundock: go, go.
PK: your a here's your quick fire round. Yeah, Google or PowerPoint, we know what the answer is to this.
Andy Bundock: Ugh.
Mark: Google every time.
Andy Bundock: PowerPoint? Okay. I'm going to say PowerPoint
PK: Wait, this is Andy's question, not Mark's.
Andy Bundock: purely because I love SVGs. That's it. Google's
PK: Okay.
Andy Bundock: got so many strengths, but come on Google, give me the damn SVGs for Christ's sake.
PK: Mark, why why why are you saying Google? Come on.
Mark: No, no, it's PowerPoint. My answer is actually Keynote. So that does...
PK: Ooh
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No, that's not an option. That's not an option.
Andy Bundock: you
Mark: Come on, gotta be cute though.
Andy Bundock: That makes a change. Mark's going off-paste again.
Mark: I love them all. I like my children. I like my children, I love them all equally, honestly. But no, they've all got bits. I do love a cheeky Google Slides though, because it's like, what is that? Creativity, know, constraint breeds creativity. So because it's not as powerful, because it's not as sexy, it's bang. It makes you do... workarounds and little thoughts and little ideas and I love working in it because of that. But yeah, mean PowerPoint is still the daddy, the mummy, So
PK: I mean,
Mark: yeah.
Andy Bundock: Yeah,
PK: Okay, okay,
Mark: All
PK: Mark. Brand rules or creative freedom. Ooh.
Andy Bundock: Ugh.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you just said constraints, you like them.
Mark: I can hear Brian rules.
PK: Brand ruse.
Andy Bundock: think you.
Mark: Yeah, I think I love getting creative and going nuts, but you can go a bit too nuts. Whereas with brand rules, especially if go back to our earlier point about decks are always on a deadline, that's why I like them. I used to build websites, websites can take years and months, but decks are always like needed by some point in the future. And if you've got creative freedom, you can go, whoop, off P.E. Eastern sailing down the river and the client goes, what? Whereas if you've got brand rules, know, even you're going to be there or thereabouts and you've got to bring it back. so, yeah, I do like a good set of guidelines. And
Andy Bundock: I think you're right
PK: But but
Andy Bundock: with the constraints thing that you've got a playground to play in, make it work within that and that's a task within itself to get that right and get it to sing so otherwise it's just like whoa we go everywhere then.
PK: But but but but but as a freelancer and and and you you get a new set of brand rules every week or every couple of weeks, I mean don't you ever kinda go nuts and say, I just want the creative freedom, I don't wanna have to learn a whole new brand guideline, you know.
Andy Bundock: That's what side hustles are for!
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Well, I think what happens to me a lot is that you get the brand guidelines, but they might not necessarily be for PowerPoint. So, you know, they might say they've got a lovely brand palette, color palette and all of these fonts, but you you have to do some translating into PowerPoint normally because, you know, it won't work because of the contrast is wrong or because, know, it's too fancy a font or whatever. I like that. I like working from that as a starting point and then going to the client and saying, look, This is great. It's still on brand, but you'll need to do X, Y, Z in order for it to work within PowerPoint. I like that.
Mark: No, definitely. I really... Yeah.
Andy Bundock: think guidelines have got better. Way back when
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes.
Andy Bundock: you
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: would get these guidelines and go, there's nothing in here that I can use. There's
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: no hex refs, it's all CMYK. They're all Pantone colors. When it was all print based. I'm going back to when I was like digital designer and what have you.
Mark: Tuesday, Auntie.
Andy Bundock: No hex refs, what must be, so you have to sort of dream them up and then send them back to the client and go, we're using these, are you okay? And
PK: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: they'll go. What's a hex ref? god, I don't know. At
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I'm
PK: Okay.
Andy Bundock: least now you get them.
PK: I I I get brand rules. Maybe it's because I'm an artist. I I like I lean towards creative freedom, but anyway, I think I'm the oddlier out here outlier in in in this group. anyway, it's it's
Andy Bundock: you
PK: my turn for a question now and and you gotta hold me to three seconds, all right? Data or emotion. Well you yeah, I mean, come on.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ooh.
PK: Emotion.
Mark: was going to say, who are we speaking to? Also, small point, it's data, but you know, we'll leave that.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: You've been in America too though,
PK: So th there's a really good quote that I'm I'm using to to build an episode about story and it's from Nancy Duarte and she says data tells us what happens and story or emotion tells us what it means. And so I I I don't think
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes.
PK: you can separate these two. I mean data is where decis ha w what you know drives people to make A decision and and then their emotion gets them to actually act on that decision. So yeah, I mean I say emotion, but that th that that's an impossible question. So anyway.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, it's hard.
Andy Bundock: Well, I think, you know,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Really hard.
Andy Bundock: how many times have you heard someone say you can't argue with the data, it's there in black and white, but at end of the day, most of the decisions are going to be made on how someone, how you make someone feel. Do you feel like, like, three companies pitch, they've all got exactly the same statistics, they've all got exactly the same marketing strategy, but you, decisions more than likely going to be based on how I feel I can work with these people. And that's your emotion right there. That's it.
PK: So I I I I think you're right, but I hate that quote that I see, especially on LinkedIn all the time, that nobody makes a a decision based on data. And I I think that's wrong. Flat out wrong. Because I think if I tell you that you're losing so much per quarter, it's gonna open up your mind to a new way of thinking. Am I really? What what what does that mean? So then what you do is you then move in with more information, right? And you if if you Get someone to open up their mind, you have the opportunity to change how they feel, which is what Andy's bringing up, because we are creatures of habit. We go to the store and we keep buying the same brand no matter what, even though if there's a better brand. and and so it it it takes something to unlock the door, and that is often data that we use. I think we tell data stories for a reason. We've got to have
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
PK: those facts, and then we've got to use the emotion to to to then deliver on on on the promise that we're gonna share with someone, right?
Andy Bundock: Yeah, the data's going to the door, but people buy from people, don't they? And it's like,
PK: But anyway Exactly. Yeah, so
Andy Bundock: thanks for bringing this to my attention, but do I feel like you can carry it out? Do I feel like you can get this over the line? And the feelings come into it. If it's too touchy-feely, then you're like, I can't work with you. You're just like
PK: Right.
Andy Bundock: all over the place. Unless it's grounded in the data. If you've got the balance of the two, then box is ticked, right? Surely.
PK: Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay. I said emotion. I
Andy Bundock: Did we answer that question or not? Did we just go on a random run?
PK: I w I landed on emotion, but anyway, yeah. Okay, so
Andy Bundock: Good.
PK: n next up Emma, we've got to keep moving. Animation or st yeah, animation or static.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: gosh, we're doing more? Okay, okay, go, go,
PK: What do you reckon? Animation or static?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: it's animation, 100%. But when, but
PK: Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: let's me clarify that, not the bounce, not the bouncing chart. I don't mean
Andy Bundock: Three seconds.
Mark: Yes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: that kind of animation.
PK: Fancy chess.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I just mean a little bit of movement, know, help, help engagement. Yeah, but yeah, if I had to choose,
Mark: Hallelujah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: yeah.
Andy Bundock: What not it looks like you're typing a letter do you want some help with that?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah. Clippy.
Mark: me, if you don't add animation, you might as well just send a PDF.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right, right.
PK: True.
Andy Bundock: Agreed.
PK: But d but do you get presenters who do not like builds and clicks?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes, so I've worked with both types of people.
Andy Bundock: Yes.
PK: What are you d what what are you doing?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I think
Andy Bundock: Yes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you can do a little bit of auto animation so that it's something builds while you think they might be talking. So that at the moment I'm working on one where they don't want lots of clicks, but they do want that movement and that progression in what's coming up or what's appearing on the slide. So I think you can do it. mean, some people just like to have full control with the clicker and just, you know, do their own thing, but yeah, less is more. Yeah.
Andy Bundock: It depends on the presenter, doesn't it Emma? I think that from my experience and you guys can like corroborate this or not I'll be interested to hear what you guys think about this most of the time When I'm doing event stuff, they hate the animations Most of the presenters are just like, I just went on the screen I want to stand there and talk because they're already nervous about standing up in front of 500,000
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: people And it's like, I just want to get this over and done with. I didn't want to present in the first place. I want to get over and done. However, you go into a more corporate environment. It's like, I need to get my message across. I'm going to go point one, click. Now I'll stand
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Hmm.
Andy Bundock: here and talk about that bit. This is important because point two, click. Reveal it on and go, this is important because. And then the outcome is point three. We're going to do this and this is going to solve it. Aren't I great? different scenario
Mark: Wait.
Andy Bundock: entirely, different environment requires for different things. But like you say Emma, it's down to the presenter. Some people want it all up on, talk about it. Some people want to go in, be in control and go click reveal, click reveal, click reveal.
Mark: We had a guy
PK: Nice.
Mark: who was a senior director and he was brilliant. He was one of these instant soundbite guys, but he didn't want the surprises. And often stuff is like last minute being turned around, blah, blah. And so we developed this thing. I'm probably sure I can say this is, name was Kano. We used to call him Kano. And we developed this thing called the Kano build, which was that as much as possible, we spread the animation over different slides.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, so just going to say split it up, Mark. Yeah.
Andy Bundock: Mmm.
Mark: So when he's looking at it in static view without hit and play, he can sort of see, okay, that builds on, then that builds on, then that builds on. So instead of having it all on the one slide, like you would normally, we build it out so that when he's on the plane or in the car or whatever, he can go, okay, I see what works.
Andy Bundock: he's got quite a short storyboard to go through.
Mark: Yeah, he was down with all the fancy stuff. He just didn't want to get caught out because it would ruin his flow. And so
PK: That's
Mark: that's how we split it out for him.
PK: we've got ten questions. We're just gonna go from here on out. A and b.
Mark: All right.
PK: I've that that was that was Emma, right? So Andy's up Andy's up next, I believe.
Andy Bundock: God. Okay.
PK: Design or delivery? Which is more more important? Do the slides matter? Does the delivery matter? Three seconds. One,
Andy Bundock: Okay. my old boss would be delivery every single time. but then he would complain if it wasn't designed properly.
Mark: I want to a good deliverer can deliver anything.
Andy Bundock: But I've been a
Mark: Thank you.
Andy Bundock: designer for longer than I care to remember, so I'm gonna go design every time. But at the same time, unless you can deliver and earn the dollars, I ain't paying for the design. So the two go hand in hand. Sorry, mate.
PK: Yeah, I mean th there there are presenters who could talk about a paper bag for forty five minutes and hold the audience, right? Yeah. Okay,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yep.
Andy Bundock: Yep.
Mark: Yeah.
PK: neck next up, and I think this is Mark now. S VG or ping? This is an Andy question, but S VG, hundred percent. And
Mark: SVG, we love an SVG.
Andy Bundock: SPG. SPG.
Mark: However, Keynote sort your stuff out because you can use SVGs now in Keynote, but you can't do anything with them. The
PK: And and Google. Google, right.
Mark: benefit is that they're scalable, like an SVG is, which is brilliant, but you can't edit the colors or anything like you can in PowerPoint. So they've
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No.
Mark: got this hybrid halfway point. And then of course Google slides neither of either of nothing. But yeah, SVG every time.
PK: Photo illust illustration.
Andy Bundock: It's put on the same face!
PK: I mean f I mean photos are easier for me to find a good photo, I have to say. Illustrations are a bit more
Mark: Yeah.
PK: work. So I'm I'm going photo on that one. All right. Emma?
Mark: It was a phase, sorry to jump in, I feel like, I don't know, maybe like two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, five, zero, everything was illustrations. And I quite liked it because it was fresh. But like you say, nowadays it's hard to recreate. I feel that's one thing that AI is not ace at yet, but AI can do amazing
Andy Bundock: Getting better, yeah.
Mark: photos now. Either, you you're starting from a photo of a real person that you know and you're sticking him on the head of a something or whatever or even just pure generation AIs killing it but I personally don't love the illustrations it comes up with. Again it's not bad at taking a, if find a nice illustration and then tweaking it, it's quite good at that. But yeah, sorry, quick answers.
PK: No, that's th that's good.
Andy Bundock: The is, a good illustrator will bring so much charm.
Mark: Yes.
Andy Bundock: to any piece of work, regardless. Forget it whether it's a deck. The choice is photo or illustration. Let's just forget whether it's on a PowerPoint. Any kind of piece of work you want to do. An illustrator brings charm. Chances are it can be ownable by a brand. But to Mark's point, you've got an image that the clients... wants to use and they say we love it except for the top that the model's wearing and you just go that's fine. There's so many tools now that say we can change that in seconds.
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: everybody's got, it's been democratized down to such a level that everybody's got access to any image they want now.
PK: Emma, thirty slides or ninety slides? I I and I think this is talking about your presentation or in general, maybe or someone else's. Doesn't matter.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter for me. Every slide ends if it ends its place. I don't mind how many unless I've actually got to edit them. Then I'll go.
Mark: 30. 90 tends to be like, it's either an event or it's a big corporate deck where there isn't that much creativity, find. This is just top of my head. If it's 30, you usually can spend a good amount of time for each slide and pour over it. And if it's 90, it's a bit like get it done, make it look like the template. Unless it's like a really lovely event where they need all day. creative and sexy. Does that make sense?
Andy Bundock: Yeah, 90 sounds like death by PowerPoint, but it could be multiple presenters, so.
PK: Wait a minute. I do I
Mark: Yeah.
PK: do n I do ninety slides all all all day long. Anytime I've got like a 30 minute thing, I'll do ninety slides. But that's kinda I do more the Lawrence Lessig approach, just you know kind of quick fire an image or word or a logo or something like that and kind of pop through But anyway. Yeah, it it depends it depends. Use case, right? Okay.
Andy Bundock: Use codes and engagement. You can be as engaged on 30 as you can 90.
PK: True. And the dark or light background. Ooh, this comes back to event or
Mark: lights.
PK: or conference room, right?
Andy Bundock: Yeah, gonna go. Don't mind, I well ours started off as darkness. We've got light in there as well.
PK: But but but but but but never white, right? I mean it l light or white or do you do you can can you go white? It's a I'm I'm pleading devil's advocate.
Andy Bundock: No, okay, right. So, let's be clear, if you are on a white, you've got to bring in some layers. You've got to layer it up, you've got some textures in there, you've got part of a logo that comes in as a section or a curve or an angle or something for things to sit on. Layer it up, if it's just black on white, then.
PK: 'Cause w when when you get those LED walls that are forty feet wide or what what have you, and you've got white blasting the audience, it's gotta be a dark background, right?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, you need to go dark. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Mark: but can I just put my hand above this one? Sorry,
PK: Yeah.
Mark: apple card again, plain white slide, one black word in the middle. That's like boom, impacts, done. Don't need any.
PK: Okay, okay, okay.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Okay, but not white because it hurts your eyes.
PK: Okay. Okay. Okay.
Mark: Okay, who's in a dark room? Fair. But yeah, like bit of that.
PK: Point taken. okay. This is Mark's question, I believe, Canva or Gamma.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: oooo
PK: Canva or gamma, that's a good good 'cause I don't I'm sure he's not keen on either of them, is he?
Mark: That is a hard one. Do you know what? don't know enough about Gamma and I do work in Canva. Can I say neither? Canva, I tell you what, Canva is amazing and for what it's doing for the world. And I read something yesterday, you know, the usual story. She'd had a hundred no letters from investors. and now the company is worth 40 billion or something like that. doing incredible
Andy Bundock: Yep. Agreed.
Mark: things. And I just did a post today about how I'm trying to move away from Adobe and I'm using Affinity. Granted, they bought that, but still love what they're doing in the whole democratization of design and chucking in
PK: Ha ha ha!
Mark: AI as well. Gamma, I think, is also growing like insanely well.
PK: What? What?
Mark: I don't know, it wasn't enough to make it, so I'll go camber.
Andy Bundock: I think I would
Mark: I think you guys do use gamma.
Andy Bundock: I've not used Gamba enough to warrant an answer from experience, but because I come from an integrated agency background, which is multi-channel,
PK: What?
Andy Bundock: that's where I've built a number of templates for clients in Canva that
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: gets me to the same place whereby I've built them all the bits and pieces in Canva, I've given them all the tools. given all built them all of their logos and their icons and all of their graphics and all the images and all the various and built the brand kit with the right fonts and right colors and go right now we're to make you some social media templates, some printed PDF templates, landscape and portrait. You can also make videos in there. You can make this, you can make that. So the fact that it just goes everywhere and gives them a toolkit to go away and make stuff themselves based on the criteria that you've built for them. There's a lot of satisfaction in that and then coming back to go, I made this and you can see the outcome. And it's not what I made you that template, you've got to and used it, fantastic.
PK: You know I love gamma. Anyway.
Mark: Okay.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, you've had some wins with GAMMA, haven't you really?
PK: I have had some some lovely wins with gamma. We won't go into that. We won't go into that now. Okay, so that was Mark's question. I believe this is my question. Illustrator or edit points in PowerPoint to adjust a curve. You know, I'll be honest with you, I love Illustrator, but to get the job done, nine times out of ten, I just edit points in PowerPoint and I can peep people kinda laugh at me because I I've I I've actually do it all the time and I've I've actually gotten pretty good at it. it's not it's not like, you know, editing in Figma or Illustrator, but you can get a lot done editing the points in PowerPoint. I I I do it all the time, so yeah.
Andy Bundock: have done it, and done it in the past frustrates me, annoyingly. It's just like, if it's like, I just need to make a slight edit. Okay, I'll do it. But I'm, see I'm very much on the, let's have one central folder with all of our brand elements and then put them in various different places. So if I've updated an icon or a thing in PowerPoint, it's not the same as what I've got in my folder. That makes me go, no, no, I'd rather go back into Illustrator, fix it, then knowing full well that my one version of the truth then goes into various places, like in Canva, like in PowerPoint, like XYZ. But
Mark: Yeah.
Andy Bundock: if it's a last minute thing and it's just got to go now, sure.
PK: Okay. Next up we've got Emma, Scripted or off the cuff? This is comes comes back to delivery and presenters.
Andy Bundock: hahahahah
Emma | Birdbox Designs: cuff? I'm going to say neither because I think scripted can feel like you're just reading and off the cuff means that you might fumble, you might add some fluff in there that's not necessary. But if I had to choose, I'd go scripted because I feel like you've had the thought process behind what each slide is bringing to the story and what it's adding. As long as you're not reading it. Does that make sense?
PK: I love it.
Mark: that I was gonna go similar to yourself I was actually gonna say both and going back to our boring practice point know your script so well that it feels off the cuff
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right.
PK: Yeah. That it's conversational. Yeah.
Mark: you need to get to your point to kind of get all the info and make sure you're covering everything but like you say nobody wants to feel like they're reading it out or they're droning on so yeah
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah.
Mark: totally what you said
PK: Love it. Okay. Next up Andy. Story story or design. We come back to design as one of the one of the things again, story or design.
Andy Bundock: just but you need both why do you do this to me I can't
Emma | Birdbox Designs: You
PK: I didn't do it to you. The randomizer did it to you.
Andy Bundock: Can you be the...
Mark: See you Bill.
Andy Bundock: Right.
PK: Yeah.
Mark: done against your head, story or design.
Andy Bundock: Why do I always get the one with the gun against your head? Okay, well.
PK: 'Cause it's more fun.
Andy Bundock: I'm a graphic designer by trade, so I'm gonna go with design. Because
PK: Design. Yes.
Andy Bundock: I started in print back in the day, so it still told a
PK: Love this.
Andy Bundock: story, but not in the same way. But... I don't think you can have one without the other, you? Really? It can be beautifully designed, but if you've got no story or message, then no one's gonna get it. But at the same time, have a wonderful story of it, if it's not brought to life with a good piece of design, it's not gonna land.
Mark: It sounds strange to say as a designer, like you say, but I've got to say story because I've seen great presentations with no slides. God, have a story. Just got
Andy Bundock: Die!
PK: Yes.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, 100 % story for me.
PK: Story.
Mark: a bunch of slides.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Mm-hmm.
Andy Bundock: Don't!
PK: Dave Dave says story too.
Andy Bundock: Dave did say something.
Mark: That stage story hasn't got any slides, we know he wants.
Andy Bundock: Yeah. I can't disagree with you, Mark. I can't. I simply can't. I worked with a guy, account director, and he was just this avant-garde, maverick kind of fly-by-the-seat-your-pants kind of guy that, you know, someone would come in and go, right, pitch tomorrow, Matt. Are you ready? You got your slide deck? Gonna do it tonight. What? You've not, we're leaving at nine AM in the morning, you've not got a deck ready. That's why, I saw that later. 11 at night, it would just like smash a few slides together and then go in that room and just stand there and talk and just flick a few slides up here. I don't think I ever saw him come back from the pitch empty handed.
PK: Mark, here's your quick fire question. Three seconds to respond. Seraph or sans serif. Ooh, for the for the fun
Mark: In that instance, I'm go come out the car.
Andy Bundock: Yeah
PK: chap. Seraph or sans serif. Ooh, man. We're putting him on the spot. Okay.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: that was faint that Mark got that one.
Andy Bundock: That is underhand. Underhand.
Mark: That's rude.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Hahaha
Mark: Both, everything, all of it.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Come on. Come on.
PK: Ha ha.
Mark: Gun against the head.
Andy Bundock: Fuck. You can't,
Mark: the reef.
Andy Bundock: we can't. Apples or oranges? Really?
Mark: Actually, I meant Sans Serif. Gun against the head, Sans Serif for clarity, boldness, clean lines. Serif can
PK: Okay. For what we do.
Mark: be beautiful, but Serif can be very wrong if used badly, I feel. And feel a bit dated.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yes.
Mark: Sans Serif
Andy Bundock: You
Mark: can look a bit, it's another slide in Ariel. But you kind of can read it every time. it's got a Sans Serif.
Andy Bundock: time. New Roman bold italic all caps.
PK: Love
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
Andy Bundock: So
Mark: Do you know Snell Roundhand? god. It's beautiful. It's like, know, Enry the 8th has just written it or something, but yeah.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: All caps, I love all caps.
Mark: Ugh.
Andy Bundock: Yeah.
Mark: Nasty question.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Right, PK, come on.
PK: I think we've run out of qu we've run out of questions. We only we only had fifteen for the for the quick fire round, so
Emma | Birdbox Designs: you got away with that one.
PK: do you wanna ask me a question? Any of you have a question for me, one one or the other?
Mark: Yes. video or no video
Andy Bundock: you
PK: Ooh, that's a good question.
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah, that's a good one, Mark.
PK: I mean I I've I've always been add in extra soft breaks and and video is a good soft break, so I I would I would say add in video if you've got it, yeah. I I
Mark: Like,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Yeah,
Mark: you know,
Emma | Birdbox Designs: thanks.
Mark: when I say a picture tells a thousand words or whatever, feel like a video could do 10 times that. If you've got like a complicated
PK: And
Mark: concept and a really nicely made video or motion graphics piece, it can just do the job of a load of slides and get everybody up to speed quicker, I feel.
PK: Yeah, and and you
Emma | Birdbox Designs: I think.
PK: can you can talk over a video and and and have, you know, some sort of animation going. It's it's it's like the Uber animation. I I'm not talking about like a canned video that everyone has to sit and watch, but you could have an an animation of somebody paddling across a a a lake or a river and you could be talking about this journey that you're going off on and that's a really interesting way to talk about journey or something like that. Yeah. Sorry, Emma, you were gonna say?
Emma | Birdbox Designs: No, I was going to say it's a nice way of bringing in movement, but without the potential for animations to go wrong. So client that I'm working again with for the second time, they have a lot of video, which they pre they produce it before and then they know it's going to last so many seconds or a minute, whatever it is. they know exactly what's happening in it. And it can't break other than, you know, you've to set it to autoplay or something. But yeah, they like that. They like knowing that it's a consistent video. they know what to expect.
Mark: Yeah. And we'll go back to one of our earlier conversations about brand guidelines or not. I got given this brand guidelines for this
PK: Yeah.
Mark: gorgeous deck about luxury travel and little
PK: Yeah.
Mark: lodges in the middle of nowhere, but all high ends. And I took it and then tweaked it a bit by bringing some of the stills to life in Firefly. And so just for like section dividers where you don't need it to be too complicated. And instead of it just being a shot of a boat on a lake, Firefly took it and then the camera panned around the boat and went around this invisible bay, this made-up bay, and it just became a section header. But it looked great, real different.
PK: Love it.
Andy Bundock: Yeah, think
Emma | Birdbox Designs: Love it.
Andy Bundock: that's where that's a good use of AI. Because I think coming back to the... the presenter that's not confident, when you're rolling this out, when you roll it out to them or when you hand it over to them, put these in for you. This is your chance to stop. Take a breath, look at your notes, give yourself a chance to compose yourself. Don't rush through, there's four of them, that's four milestones. When you get to the second one, you're halfway through. You can almost like count the beats. can chance to sort of like, you know, it's okay to not say anything for a second after that little video because everyone's like, what's next then? that can be really, little things like that can really help someone to really land what they're saying.
Mark: So that's it for this episode of DexI. Please, thanks so much for listening or watching. If you want to know more about us, we're on LinkedIn and YouTube and Spotify and Apple podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.
PK: You can find me at pkdigital dot net or on LinkedIn.
Andy Bundock: and you can find me at andybandock.com and on Instagram.
Mark: you can find me at 6mileshigh.com or on LinkedIn and Instagram as 6mileshigh. And don't forget anything that you don't like please tell us. Anything you do like please tell everybody else. See you next time on the next episode of Next Slide Please.