More than a decade ago, I had a boss named Don who like to use "the squint test" on any advertisement or collateral we created.  He would ask you to hold it up and he would squint at it from ten to twenty feet away.  

At the time, I thought he was a little nuts.  But over the years I have come to understand the wisdom of this approach to a first level of creative review, and I have shared it with many other people.  (So a tip-of-the-hat to all the boss wisdom we don't appreciate at the time.  Perhaps it's like the wisdom of our moms and dads, which we don't fully recognize it until we are out on our own.)

Now, Don was old school and the desktop revolution had not yet invaded his office.  In other words, he had no computer.  So the squint test was conducted with literal printouts and a big office.  Today you can get the same result by zooming out on your sales asset on-screen.

Physical or electronic, the squint test tells you a number of things very quickly:

1. Is piece visually pleasing? Is there a good balance of copy and negative space? Are the margins sufficient?  Does the piece feel crowded or unfinished?

2. Are the colors balanced?  Does one color shout while the others whisper? Is there harmony in the palette  Are the saturation levels too similar so that the colors appear muddy?

3. Where does your eye land first? Is that the most important point?  Are there two seemingly equal areas of interest? Is that desirable for this piece? 

4. If the piece is for a projected presentation, how will it look from the very back of a large room? If the piece is for a billboard, what shapes will drivers see before content clicks into focus? 

If you are deciding among several layout options, print out tiny "squint" version (where you can grasp the layout but not read the words) and as a few coworkers to comment on them.  The strongest layout will become apparent.

After you're happy with the squint test, of course you'll need get into the nitty-gritty of the copy and design.  But Don's point, and now my point, is that if the squint test fails, it doesn't matter how tight the copy is or how creative the graphics.  If your don't make it  past the squint, neither will your audience. 

Thanks Don.

Airplane travel disorients me.  The sameness of the clouds or the ocean or tiny towns, roads, and rivers shifting beneath the plane makes time stretch and bend.  Hours some times fly by in the blink of an eye, and on other flights, each minute seems to last forever.

Some planes are outfitted with video screens that show you a flight path and a tiny plane icon moving along - just like the ones in old movies or Indiana Jones!  This addition made long flights much more palatable to me.  There is magic in knowing "you are here."


Strong presenters know that the audience craves that sense of an overall plan and current position.  

Right off the bat, let me acknowledge there is a HUGE exception to this rule: master storytellers frequently employ an element of surprise or suspense and a few unexpected turns to hold their audience in the palm of their hands.  Think Steven Jobs.  He had the charisma and control to hold an audiences' attention as well as content that had us all literally reaching for our wallets before he finished speaking.  If you are in that rarefied class, congratulations!

The rest of us need to help our audience be a good audience, and one effective way to do that is to provide presentation GPS: that is, a map of our destination, our current location, and our route.

Some presenters choose to rely on their voice-over to guide the audience through the presentation, but here's the Catch22: if you know your presentation inside-out (and you really should!) it's hard to identify points of potential confusion. The flow makes perfect sense to you, but the first-time viewer may not follow your logic or, perhaps more likely,  they may make assumptions that muddle your stellar approach.   

A better solution it to incorporate presentation GPS elements into every presentation. There a many ways to do this, including:

• Agenda  - the simplest and most overlooked tool you can use to set expectations... and meet them
• Break Slides -  highlight upcoming topics and indicate the current section
  
• Headlines - combine primary and secondary to  tell them overtly "you are here"
  e.g., this is the Finance section and we're still discussing Seasonal Discounts
  
• Iconography - create icons that corresponds to each topic and repeat them on content pages to orient the audience to the larger outline and flow
  
• Color - select your background, border or headline color to subtlety communicate a change in sections
  

There's an old, yet accurate piece of presentation advice: Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. Tell 'em.  Tell 'em what you told 'em.  I would add one more element: Tell 'em where they are.