CARP Principles for Presentations

This term I’m taking a class on Facilitating Live Events. We’ve been asked to discuss CARP (Contrast, Alignment, Repetition and Proximity) in its relation to presentation design.

Contrast: This can take many forms. Whether it’s contrasting color, size, shade, or even font choice, you want a good deal of contrast in your layouts.

Alignment: You can bring focus to an element by changing it’s alignment, or naturally guide the viewer’s attention by keeping a nice alignment to your slide. I always design on a grid layout with columns.

Repetition: I actually prefer the word consistency here. There should be one style for headlines, and a complimentary readable body font treatment. There should be a consistent layout to your slides, rather than each looking like their own presentation.

Proximity: This is grouping things that belong together, and keeping the illustration or diagram with the topic.

While I employ all of these approaches in my layouts, I think that proximity is probably the most important aspect in presentations. It is really difficult to understand the point, when the supporting graphics do not appear with the lesson. Think back to any school book you read in K12. Did you have to search for a diagram or chart? That disruption to the learning is tiresome, and you’ve lost your audience if you employ that method. Most learners don’t appreciate having to search for the information.

Initially I had searched for a good and bad example to illustrate a bad PowerPoint screen. Ultimately I decided to create my own.

Here is a very, very, very bad design example. If you’re talented enough to read any of it, then you’ll likely have a giggle:

And here would be a much better solution:

I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of “Death by Powerpoint” by now. If you aren’t, check out this funny video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbSPPFYxx3o