This is a unique design for a timeline. It’s purpose is to illustrate fluctuating levels of activities and increasing levels of resources deployed during an engagement or project. Ocean waves and a slanted shore bottom are good visual analogies for this concept.

There is a download containing two wave variations available for this Chart of the Month. Don’t forget to download this and use it the next time you wish to illustrate this concept.

This Chart of the Month encourages the use of graphics instead of text to tell a story of transformation. The “101010″ above the funnel was created by typing lines of numbers, saving the lines of numbers as a picture, and then importing the picture into a graphic shape. The outflow is simply a photograph placed under the funnel, but you may want to consider using a photograph imported into an outflow-shaped graphic – perhaps a group of people making decisions, etc.

Instead of the “10101010″ numbers, the words “data data data” could have been used just as effectively. Or if your transforming time into money, consider using a collage of clocks above the funnel and lots of dollar signs imported into an outflow shape below the funnel. So you see how this works.

When choosing your photographs, take into account the shapes of the inflow and outflow. Since quite a bit of the photograph will be eliminated when it is imported into the inflow/outflow shape, two types of photographs work best: 1) collages and 2) small subjects with lots of space around them.

Remember that the autoshapes in PowerPoint cannot be rotated before importing a photograph. The photograph will come in based on the original orientation. Therefore, for example, the inflow graphic needs to be drawn.

See this FAQ to learn how to import photographs into shapes. How do I create photographs in different shapes from rectangular photographs?

Radar charts aren’t used as often as they should be. They’re a very useful tool. Presenters seem to be very comfortable with showing volumes and comparisons as column or line charts, which also work but aren’t nearly as concise. The reason radar charts aren’t used more broadly may be because they can be difficult to decipher, especially when there are lots of lines and categories. In those cases, it’s probably better to go with a more linear approach to displaying data. But if you have only a few lines and a few categories, consider placing a target-type graphic behind the radar chart to help your audience make value comparisons more easily. The radar charts cannot be formatted to accept any type of fill for the value bands, so this is the “fix.”

Size the circles so that they are the same size as the bands and then layer then so that are all are visible. Move them behind the radar chart. Don’t worry that the radar chart’s grid lines have hard corners and the target background is comprised of circles. They still work together very well. When choosing your target colors, you can use the lighter hues from your color palette. Or, if you wish, you can use shades of gray or other complementary color. Just be sure that there is a lot of contrast between the data lines and the colors in the target.

The two charts are identical except that one uses the target-type graphic. You can see that they values are much more apparent with the targets. Consider using this device the next time you have to compare values and categories.

If you don’t already have a naming convention and file architecture for the electronic versions of your presentations, you should probably develop one. If you do have a naming convention, you may want to read this to determine whether you have built in enough identifiers. Naming conventions can do a few things: They …

1. prevent documents from being overwritten with earlier versions
2. make it possible to determine the status of the document within the development process
3. order the documents within the project file
4. track the document down after it goes final.

Let’s look closer at what naming conventions accomplish.

1. Version control. In addition to making sure that a presentation-development process doesn’t splinter (two or more people working on the electronic master at the same time, which creates a double master – yikes), adjustments to the file title during the process prevents work loss. Work loss can be overwriting the current master with a previous version or vice versa. Either way, you want to protect the iterations of the document as it’s being produced.
2. Document status. Whether you’re producing a presentation all by yourself or as a team, it’s helpful to know the iteration number date for the presentation. If you’re producing the presentation with team members, it’s also helpful to know who last edited the presentation.
3. Finding the presentation. If a naming convention is used, the sequence of iterations can be easily seen and the most recent electronic version readily identified.
4. If your company has only one file server, tracking a document down is a relatively easy thing. If you have multiple offices, however, it may be helpful to include an office identifier to the naming convention.

What makes a good naming convention?

The number of identifiers built into a file name determine how effective it is to identify a document within a folder. For example, date, charge code, client name, person creating/editing document, version number/letter, date of presentation, etc. There are no character number limitations when naming a file, so you can contain as much information as believed useful. Most operating systems preview the first page of a document (and beyond) without opening it, so you don’t have to include the presentation title. This only comes into play when more than one presentation is developed for the same event, etc.

A sample naming convention: 11-0921-Partridge-abc123-0918C-kavBO.pptx

• The 11-0921 is the date of the presentation (all documents starting with that date are automatically filed next to each other in the folder, regardless of document type [Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Keynote, etc.])
• Partridge is the client name
• abc123 is the charge code
• 0918 is the date the edits were made
• C is the version of the edits made on a day when several iterations are created
• kav is the person who made the edits
• BO is the office acronym
• .pptx indicates the type of file (make sure your folders show the file extension for documents).

This is important. Notice that the constant information is placed at the beginning of the file name? You want the files in the folder to order themselves in logical groups. Therefore, it’s important that the order of the information in the naming convention be considered. The presentation date, client, and charge code all stay the same and will, therefore, group your files together. The first changing variable is the date of the edits and the version letters. You want the edit date and version letter to be the next element so that they order the files in the folder. The initials of the person editing and the office acronym won’t disrupt an orderly display of the file names if they are at the end.

This type of naming convention works well when presentations are filed in client folders. If you create a file architecture that is based on chronology (month and year, for example), then you may want to put the client name first so the files for a particular client are grouped together in the folders.

There are some companies that create a check-out/check-in folder within the file architecture. This folder is designed to keep employees from working on an electronic master simultaneously. Documents can be split into pieces and worked on by multiple team members, but the person who checked the document out has the responsibility for reassembling it and placing it back into the folder on the server so that the next review and set of edits can occur.

Naming conventions are important whether you work alone, as part of a team, or as part of a network of offices. Every office should adhere to the same naming convention so that there is a standardized method of identifying documents, tracking them down, pulling elements from previous presentations into future presentations, etc.

This chart conveys a lot of information, but the layout is simple. It would even work as a company’s visual mission or vision statement. The next time you need to let people know who you are, this might be the way to do it. Of course, the layout can be used to describe any number of things, so let your imagination go. Notice that there is no chart title? It’s not really important to introduce this graphic, since it is self-interpretive, which makes it a good candidate to become one of a company’s defining signature graphics.

We called it a quadrant variation, and it works very well that way; but you could actually use any number of divisions. So, lets take this apart so you know how to develop your own.

1. The 4-way arrow is a standard PowerPoint shape
2. The text in the 4-way arrow and around the perimeter of the circle is WordArt. Refer to this FAQ if you need an easy way to work with circular text in WordArt: How do I easily create perfectly round WordArt circles? The top two circular text WordArt elements are arcs that fit over the circle and the bottom two circular text WordArt elements are arcs that fit under the circle. You should have four separate WordArt arcs; one for each text blurb. You just need to rotate each one into position using the green dot handle
3. The photos have been imported into segments of a 4-piece pie, which you can get in the Segments Category Segment 033 – Non-Data-Driven Pies
4. Once the photos have been imported into the segments, format the segments with a 25-point soft edge
5. The shadowed circle is a white-filled circle with no line color and an offset center shadow applied (PowerPoint 2007 or 2010 only).

Make sure you select photos that can retain their impact after you import them into the pie segments and soften the edges. You’ll probably need to resize the photos and crop them to get the best effect. This will probably take the most time when developing these charts. The steps above are fairly quick to complete.

Enjoy developing this impactful and elegant graphic.

This is a nice technique to add to your PowerPoint skill set. It’s so easy, but it is seldom used/seen in presentations. This technique can also be used to help convey many concepts: attributes, goals, activities, team members, design element on the slide to help set tone, etc. The Chart of the Month uses the picture cube to illustrate three of OurCo’s major strengths. Use your imagination and you’re sure to come up with a three-picture combination that would work well as a cube.

The steps are very simple, but you must start with perfectly square photographs. Most photographs are either horizontally or vertically oriented; very few are perfectly square. Therefore, you’re going to need to crop the photographs you intend to use. Keep this in mind when selecting photographs and choose only those that can be cropped without losing critical parts of the image.

After you’ve selected and cropped your photographs, decide which photos you want to appear where on the cube. Then start applying the 3D rotation. Click on a photograph and then right click. Select “Format Shape” and then “3-D Rotation.” Then click on the “Presets” button. You’ll get the menu below. Simply click on one of the three “Parallel” presets. Then do the same for the remaining two photographs, selecting their own Parallel preset orientation (as shown below).

You can do the same with the labels for the cube sides. You can then either place the text on top of the photograph or to the side (as in this Chart of the Month. The image below shows the formatted photographs and text. All that needs to be done is to assemble the cube and place the associated text. You can drag the pieces together and then fine tune by nudging them with your navigational arrows.

Enjoy using this technique. It is so simple, you’ll look for opportunities to use the cubes in your presentations.

You’ll never look at graphic designs the same way again after you learn this technique. These graphics are perfect as a container for imported photographs, either a single photograph or a collage of photographs (as seen in the example slide). Click here to view the tutorial for creating these great, impactful design elements for your presentations. They are elegant enough to be suitable as a design for your company’s presentation template.