I have just had the pleasure of reading slide:ology, The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte, President and CEO of Duarte Design, the firm that created the presentation for Al Gore’s Oscar-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth.

The book is beautifully designed and illustrated and leads the reader through the process and concepts of creating a visually compelling presentation. Easy to read sections with insightful case studies from some of the world’s leading brands (Adobe, Hewlett-Packard, Mozilla) help convey the message that you need to create a meaningful relationship between you, your slides and your audience rather than a barrage of slides full of nested bullet lists.

Key areas of the book include:

• Why is a good presentation important and where do you begin
• Planning, research and brainstorming
• Displaying data – diagrams and infographics
• Thinking like a designer – color, grid systems, typeography, layout, templates
• Movement and animation
• Interacting with slides
• Manifesto – The five theses of the Power of a Presentation

The book isn’t about Powerpoint, Keynote or Google Docs, its about concept, storytelling and engaging your audience. It should be read and re-read by anyone responsible for brainstorming, creating, designing and presenting in any organisation who truely cares about their brand.