Feature

Creating Legible Transparencies

Carol Cavanagh

How often have you found yourself looking forward to a talk at a conference, and then the lights dim, the speaker begins, and you can't read his transparencies? As the presentation continues, you find yourself squinting, increasingly trying to decipher what's being shown. After a while, you just give up, realize it's not worth the effort, and sit back and listen as the speaker presents and discusses each congested transparency. As it turns out, the talk is far from the enlightening and educational experience you'd hoped for. Until recently, transparencies were either drawn by hand or created by an artist. The artist was familiar with the different font, point size, and layout requirements of various publications, and they also knew the rules of good transparency design. As people have started to generate their own graphics, the readability of conference transparencies has decreased dramatically. Here are some steps to ensure transparency readability.