Useful resources for presenters from the design field: Smashing Magazine’s 25 useful design videos and presentations

Even regular presenters  do well to pay attention to others in their field.

You can pick up new ideas about familiar subjects, new subjects presented in a familiar way, and new ideas presented in unfamiliar fashions! Those of us who, like I, use the cognitive neurosciences to inform their presentation skills do well to give attention to those in the design field, and vice-versa in order to advance their skills.

So for me, in addition to my newsfeeds of psychological topics, I also have a selection of design feeds. Most of these are not about presentations per se, but about design in general, in particular user interface designs as well as advertisements. I incorporate fun and hopefully engaging segments on both of these in my Presentation Magic workshops.

Today, one of my design feeds, Smashing Magazine, has a series of presentation videos featuring some of the world’s most established and accomplished designers telling and illustrating their stores. In a weblog entry entitled, 25 useful videos and presentations for designers, we see in action a litany of great designers. It’s too soon in my sampling process to highlight any one or two of interest to presenters; far be it for me to tell you what might influence your design aspirations!

Please go take a look, and use the comments section to start a discussion of what you liked and can recommend to other readers.

One of the other design feeds I regular read is that of Common Craft, a site that explains in very simple ways complex ideas. This weekend it published a link to a gestalten.tv video looking at the design of graphics for the New York Times website.

Its graphcis editor, Archie Tse is interviewed, and here is a choice quote:

At the Times, we generally err on the side of clarity, versus aesthetic. The simplicity we try to achieve is an aesthetic in itself.

You can see the video here. Gestalten.tv also has an iTunes presence which you can subscribe to and keep updated.

2 responses to “Useful resources for presenters from the design field: Smashing Magazine’s 25 useful design videos and presentations

  1. A quick first reaction to Milton Glaser’s presentation … what’s with the hand covering the mouth? That’s amazingly distracting to me.
    I like his humor, and would like a little more energy from him — but that’s just personal preference. It was very useful/valuable to me to see his process of how to approach a design project. (And I especially liked the final poster he shows!)

  2. Wow, very nice. thank you!

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