i have seen a good share of presentations, and the ones that are the most memorable are the ones which are the most visually entertaining. You can talk for hours about air, but when it comes to keeping someones attention, sensual interaction always works, whether visual, audio, tactile, smells and/or tastes. anything that involves the viewers interest to interact is gold. Words don’t speak for themselves, but a presentation can. I am at ENSCI in paris now, on exchange from CCA, and i do not speak much french, so the most universal way to communicate my ideas are with interesting presentation material, even without many ideas, i get lots of feedback. For somewhat of an example, when you enter a gallery of a famous painter, say at the Lucian Freud exhibit at the pompidou (fantastic) the artist is obviously not there talking about his ideas and trying to speak for something that is not there, however, people know what he wants to say, and can read his thoughts through his work, even if there were no ideas at all, you are inspired which is most important to generate new ideas. if you are going to ration your time, i would say be visual, because that is what the public responds to in general, and it is one of the main ways people think. Many times you are not there to speak for yourself, and your work will be read by people who don’t know you at all, so if you dont have many ideas, but you can make a killer graphic, focus on the graphic, because it will inspire new ideas, and will inspire people to react and provide ideas themselves. almost all ideas have been said in one form or another, but presentations are ways to reinvent old ideas.
nope, often just great presentation skills, which proved to be enough.
Getting $200k’s worth of capital approved in this economic climate for prototyping gear … you must be using the force yourself - nice one! 
It all depends on what your definition of a “better presentation”.
My view of the BEST presentation is the one that takes the least amount of effort to achieve the greatest results. If I can do that with a 5 minute napkin sketch and a jedi mind trick…that is the best presentation.
If I have a team of 4 designers work on a shit hot presentation but the ideas don’t suit my client’s needs…all the jedi mind tricks in the world won’t save that beautiful slide deck.
What I see in this thread is the typical designer talk of how important the “presentation” is. Where the definition of the “presentation” is a set of pretty pictures.
The “presentation” is the full package. Just as “design” isn’t just industrial design. The true meaning of Design (capital D) is a group of people of varying skills and disciplines that produce a product.
I think ip pretty much nailed it.
Sometimes, a cheesy idea with a cheesy presentation works a LOT better than a good idea with a good presentation.
take a look at this. The guy who set this up has got funding for it!
I think if you have the ability to sell a poor idea with a great presentation, more power to you. But if I was a hiring manager, I would weigh more heavily the quality of the development and final solution way before the presentation. It’s probably pretty difficult to stick a presentation on a shelf or in front of someone and expect them to buy it. If your target audience/consumer makes sensible decisions they can easily look past the fluff.
I’d like to weigh in on this discussion as I recently had this exact experience with a job.
The requirement was to take a clients idea for a unique XXXXX and develop into several potential solutions to evaluate a path to market. There were around 20 hours for the job which I considered low for the amount of work, anywho.
20 hours gobled up with several reviews between myself and the project manager and I’d sketched out 6 different final options with 2 views of each. 12 perspective shots. I photographed and sent these through to the PM to take and review with the client…only to receive a call a day later that the sketches were’nt up to standard ! Bummer ! …but the ideas were superb.
PM had someone else use my sketches as a base and redo to a higher level. These were then taken to the client who was absolutely blown away by the fact someone could have come up with this amount of ideas of how there little idea could look and work across 3 totally different market segments.
Naturally I felt bummed that I’d been shot down over the sketches, but happy to get critical feedback in a professional manner.
Which has left me pondering. Should have stopped the ideation at the 10hour mark and sketched up what I’d had or pressed on like I did to explore better potential solutions ? There’s a limit of course to everything, but I just feel at this crucial early stage of development putting in as much time into finding solutions, rather than super hot renderings would be more beneficial to the client.
Interesting, what caught my eye is that you spent 20 hours, the full budget, but they had someone else redo the work. So did the firm eat it on the budget, or where there more hours that you were not told about?
This is where you really have to know the client. Some clients who are very design and idea savvy can see the idea and concept regardless of sketch-rendering quality. Some clients really won’t even evaluate an idea unless it’s up to their quality standard. For them, looking at a bad sketch or rendering is like reading an email with lots of grammar and spelling mistakes. I have no idea what your sketches or the “revised” renderings looked like but scheduling is probably something to talk to your project manager about for next time.
I’m confused again. Didn’t you discuss the deliverables before the project started?
Interesting analogy!
Correct. The issue wasn’t with the concepts themselves, it was with the standard of presentation drawings which were not up to my design managers standard. In this instance I was working with a Design Director (on the otherside of the country) and was a new way of working for both of us.
I had no contact with the client directly or the scope of the budget. I received a brief and time allocation of 20 hours.
Iab** just for reference this is a different project than the one we’re discussing in the branding thread. Cheers
Definitely. In this instance I had no client involvement, and for sure during the next phase we will be keeping a tighter to schedule to ensure the end result meets all parties expectations. It’s been a good learning experience.
Hey Yo. Yes they had someone else redo the sketches. Someone superskilled with rendering could have taken my linework and pumped these up in 3-4 hours max. Yes they’ve worn this cost for now which will no doubt be recovered throughout the next stages.
Its like asking what is more important — water or air?
You need a great blend of both to survive and make an impact-full difference.
A great presentation can help communicate complex information to a wide range of people with diverse professional backgrounds and competencies. A great presentation can also aid in the retention of your idea.
Without a great idea, a fabulous presentation is an exercise in vanity and braggadocio.
Well put!