I had the pleasure recently of attending the Syracuse University Design Senior Class Showcase in NYC. There is certainly a lot of design talent entering the work force right now, including (full disclosure) that of my cousin.

While much of the style of design struck me as overly layered and over-designed, that's not unusual to see in academic projects. But it was nice to see restraint, white space and simplicity at least in the collection of business cards. And I loved seeing visual and chunked out information on a few of the resumes. 

Scroll down for links to all of the portfolios of the graduating seniors. 

But...I do have to say that for a department that grants degrees not in graphic design, but in communications design, I found the one professor I spoke to alarmingly dismissive and insulting of presentation design and other information design. A portion of our conversation:

ME: So, I saw a little data design in some of the annual report projects, but do you teach any specific classes in information or data design?

PROF: Well, we cover it in the context of other things.

ME: Do you offer any classes in presentation design?

PROF: I hope you don't mean PowerPoint!

ME: I do. And Keynote, Prezi and other software tools...

PROF: Well, PowerPoint they can learn in a day if they want. I learned it in a day.

ME: Really? I find the vast majority of graphic designers who put "PowerPoint" as a skill on their resumes can't begin to design an effective presentation. 

PROF: These students aren't interested in that.

ME: Well, if they're interested in earning good money in design, there's a lot of work out there I'm sure they might be interested in even if it's just to pay the bills at first...I would hire one of them in an instant, and also send print and branding projects their way as well—if only I saw some examples of presentation design in their portolios. And it can pay a lot more than entry-level web or packaging design if they can even find one of those jobs.

PROF: Well, I don't have much time with them and there's just so much we can teach [over the course of 4 years]

ME: But I thought you said it only took one day to teach it?

Okay, I didn't say that last thing. I sighed and walked out. This isn't the first time I've seen this attitude from design schools, and it truly is unfortunate. 

Design students spend up to four years (and a lot of money) learning all types of design that they may never choose or be able to do in the real world. But there's value in learning web, package, print, layout, information, identity and wine bottle design even if you end up only designing mobile apps. 

The truth is though that most designers do need to be flexible and multi-faceted especially early in their careers. And if they find themselves engaged with a client, they should be able to properly respond when that client needs a TED talk or conference keynote presentation designed. They should be able to create the branding identity for a small company AND create an effective sales deck. They should be able to design a microsite for a client's new IP AND create an effective Slideshare complement. They should be able to design the business cards for a startup AND the VC pitch presentation—and design it properly so their client can edit the budget at the last minute.

But then maybe I should be happy that design schools instill in their students such disdain for this one discipline of graphic design. When other graphic designers refuse or are unable to design presentations, that's when I get calls from the Presidents, CEOs and Fortune 500 companies to work on their CES Keynotes, their TED Talks and client-facing sales tools. 

And those people pay pretty well. That tends to happen with things so few people know how to do...

If any recent design student is interested in making some money in graphic design working on presentations for me and my clients, let me know. I've got more high-end work than I know what to do with. The only problem is finding people who can use their graphic design talents to do it.

Nancy Duarte and her firm Duarte Design have just released Slidedocs, their latest presentation book.

Continuing their trend of releasing books for free and in multimedia formats (see resonate), this latest is available for free download at their site in PowerPoint format. Though it seems odd to release a book as a PowerPoint file, in this case it is entirely appropriate as the entire focus of the book is creating print documents using PowerPoint, something Nancy calls "Slidedocs."

Practical Business Solutions

I have known that Slidedocs has been in the works for a while, and I'm excited for its release as it addresses an uncomfortable truth about corporate environments that often goes unaddressed by many presentation experts: PowerPoint is used far more than just as a tool to create formal on-screen slideshows. I'm not talking about the amateur poster designs at the water cooler announcing a canned food drive (although that's certainly a valid use), but rather high-stakes reports, memos, strategy documents, proposals and even white papers—things that once were the domain of Microsoft Word.

But Microsoft Word has become an entirely unusable program for most (myself included) if one wishes to inject any degree of design or complexity. This fact, coupled with the need for all types of communications to be more concise, produced more quickly and delivered more visually, has made PPT the default and de facto method of business communication creation.

We can debate whether this is a good thing or not, but it's a fact. Unfortunately, PPT's intrinsic design as "slideware," leads most to create stereotypical on-screen slides even when their work will never see a projector or large LCD screen. (Microsoft's default pages don't help, pushing its users to make 44pt headers and 32pt body copy).

The trend toward using PPT to create print documents was something I started seeing years ago, and instead of fighting it, I have long advocated using PPT in 3 distinct formats: