reports, presentations, websites, flash, maps and fun stuff
DESCRIPTION
Friday lunch briefing by Colin BottomleyTRANSCRIPT
The point of this is to discuss how we can
improve the look of all printed and
electronic material associated with Si.
We don’t want anything
amateur-looking bearing
the famous Si baubles
think visually…Getting away from long bullet-pointed
lists or page after page of solid text.
Think about the
presentation template
– this got everyone
thinking about how to
represent information in
a more visual way.
G:\ADMINISTRATION &
MANAGEMENT\FORMS &
TEMPLATES\Presentation
template
• Diagrams, and charts can take the
place of long-winded explanations.
• Pull out any small, self-contained bits
of information such as case studies,
quotes, statistics etc into
individual text boxes
Also, an obvious point is to give Colin as much advance
warning as possible… use the Print Deadlines Calendar
The page on the right contains more text but is still more appealing to read
The point is, I’m not looking to you lot to do any difficult
formatting, to create columns or pretty graphs… Just give me
an indication of what text you want pulled out, mark it on your
Word document somehow, and I’ll lay it out
The same applies to Excel and any diagrams you’ve ripped off
other people – Just make sure you send me the original
spreadsheets or pdfs, then I can tweak the design
Of course photos make a
huge difference. But I
don’t expect anyone to
spend ages image
hunting. I can do that.
All I need is a few
keywords on PLACES
and CONCEPTS such
as… health, young people,
Tyneside, rural.
Please, please ask the
client in advance
though, as they’ve often
got access to image
libraries of their own that
saves a huge amount of
time.
For the time being, we
don’t have any map
software, and it’s
illegal to keep ripping
off Google Maps for
any substantial piece of
work. Plus, it doesn’t
look very professional.
We are currently looking
in to getting some GIS
software, but in the
meantime, if you need to
do intricate GIS analysis,
the client should be able
to provide the base
maps.
The report template is located at
G:\ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT\FORMS & TEMPLATES.
When you start any sort of report, start
by using the report template. This is
nothing to do with making your
document look nice, it is to be used
because it has a set hierarchy of
subheadings, clear text, an automatic
contents list and paragraph
numbering. It is basic, clean and
simple.
Your doc should stay in the Word
template until it has been finalised
and commented upon by you, the
project manager, the client, god…
whoever needs to. THEN it can go
to Colin, where it can be DTP’d
and sent out as the final version.
Nothing goes out as a final
copy if it’s still in the Word
template format
Obviously there will be
times when you want it
to look a bit smarter
when it goes out for
comment. In this case,
we can do a front cover
to go on the Word
report, but no report
should be sent out in
Word as a final
version. This is
especially important for
proposals.
As long as I can get…
• advance warning
• source files for charts and diagrams
• advice on photos
• the text clearly laid out in the report
template
Is this possible? If not, why not?
Everything comes to Colin for full DTP
treatment before it goes out as a final
copy.
Si presentation Template:
G:\ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT\FORMS &
TEMPLATES\Presentation template
Keep thinking visually… photos, diagrams, reduced
amount of text
Advance warning to Col… not always easy but at
least gives a chance to get photos etc
Watch out for the
position of your text –
either put it in a clear
space…
…or bung it in a box.
You can make the box
slightly transparent if
you really want to be
clever.
Often for interviews we now print
out the presentations on card to
make ring-bound handouts
which form a simple sort of
‘brochure’ for the client to keep,
rather than printing out the
presentation to hand out.
If you want to do this, bear in
mind that double-sided printing
means the inner margin (for the
binding) will change with every
other slide…
Still a bit of a work-in-progress, but
soon we should be able to send out
mail fliers properly formatted, rather
than just badly set text.
In the meantime, remember to
make sure any bulk emails are tidy
and concise, especially for the
networks – network fliers should
really only be giving a teaser to
link to the website, a series of
essay-length news articles
It won’t be long before it would be advantageous to
be able to submit some of our work as something to
be uploaded to the clients website, rather than a
couple of copies of a report and a pdf in an envelope.
This is a little way off, but it will highlight the
importance of the ways in which we lay out
information in our reports.