Don’t let PowerPoint autofit your text

Design

One of the default features in PowerPoint is the ability for it to automatically adjust the size of text (“autofit”) in a text box so that it all fits. This may seem like a god-send, but, as with most automated features, it really shouldn’t be the end of the story. PowerPoint autofit – take back your […]

Commit to consistency

Concept Design

The power of repetition We (should) all know the basic geometry concept about a line being a straight path made up of at least two points. Similarly, establishing a system is simply repeating something more than once. With this repetition and consistency comes the sense of stability that we know from the physical world: more layers make […]

Keep your centered text balanced

Design

I found this ‘commitment statement’ printed on the wall of a management office, and thought it would be a good real-world example for this centered text topic. Let’s have a look: This is a classic case of simply letting text fall where the (arbitrary) margins dictate. The basic approach is to just fill the space: […]

Maximize your images

Design Organization

This is a pet peeve of mine. Basically it’s when people use full-resolution images in their e-mails or blog/web sites. It’s a classic case of when the common web publisher (which is almost anyone) is just unaware of best practices, and/or has no simple way to even address the issue.

Speed up formatting with “Find and Replace”

Design

This may seem more obvious to some than others, but if you’ve only used the “Find and Replace” feature for words, you may be missing out. Any time you come across a case of needing to repeat some corrective formatting more than a few times, it could be an opportunity to automate the process. Maybe […]

Printing in white

Concept Design

Here’s a do-it-yourself technique for when you need a slick museum-like sign. Let’s say we want to make a series of cards to label a small art exhibit. It could just look like this: But, let’s class it up a little. For best results you will need to set up a trimming station with an […]

Air out your tables

Design

When you create a table, whether using a web app, Microsoft Word or PowerPoint, or even Adobe InDesign, the default is usually a black line around every cell, and little to no space around the content in that cell. That should hardly ever be the end of the process. The defaults have faults In MS Office, […]