Skip to content

References: Designing Presentations

← Back to chapter


  1. Presentation - Wikipedia. Overview of presentation as a communication form, including its history, types (informative, persuasive, instructional), and the role of visual aids in supporting spoken content.

  2. Visual Hierarchy - Wikipedia. Explains the design principles of visual hierarchy -- how size, color, contrast, and position guide the viewer's eye -- which is fundamental to effective slide design.

  3. Slide Presentation - Wikipedia. Covers the evolution of slide presentations from 35mm slides to modern digital tools, and the design principles that have emerged for creating effective visual support for spoken presentations.

  4. Reynolds, G. Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery. New Riders, 2012. Influential guide to minimalist slide design inspired by Japanese aesthetics, advocating for restraint, white space, and image-driven slides over bullet-point-heavy decks -- a primary reference for the design principles in this chapter.

  5. Duarte, N. Slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations. O'Reilly Media, 2008. Comprehensive guide to the visual design of presentations, covering layout, typography, color, data visualization in slides, and the one-idea-per-slide principle taught in this chapter.

  6. Presentation Design Principles - David JP Phillips, TED Talk. Phillips presents five research-backed principles for slide design that prevent cognitive overload, including one message per slide, contrast, and minimizing text -- directly applicable to this chapter's design rules.

  7. Canva Design School: Presentation Design - Canva. Free tutorials on presentation design fundamentals including layout, typography, color theory, and visual consistency, with practical templates that demonstrate the principles taught in this chapter.

  8. The Non-Designer's Design Book Principles - Nielsen Norman Group. Explains the four fundamental design principles (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity) that govern effective slide layouts and visual communication.

  9. Assertion-Evidence Slide Design - Michael Alley, Penn State. Research-based alternative to the traditional topic-subtopic slide format, replacing bullet points with a sentence headline (assertion) supported by visual evidence -- a key alternative approach discussed in this chapter.

  10. Beyond Bullet Points: Presentation Design for Engineers - IEEE. Professional engineering organization's guidelines for designing technical presentations that communicate complex information clearly, with specific advice on figure placement, data display, and slide structure.