Cliché of the Week: The PowerPoint Starburst

By Doug Neff

Honestly, I love Batman as much as the next guy. And I’ll even admit to wanting to be Batman at different points in my life.

But—and this is very, very important—I never wanted to be the campy, 1960’s, Adam West Batman. Never. Not once.

The difference between Adam West’s Batman and Christian Bale’s Batman is…well, it’s all the difference.

If Christian Bale’s Batman made PowerPoint slides (and how do you know he doesn’t?) they would be succinct, hard-hitting, sharply refined, and just slightly elegant.

Adam West’s Batman? Well, he does make PowerPoint slides, and they turn out like the one you see here. POW! KRAK! BOOM! These are excellent techniques if you’re making a campy television show, but outside of that particular aesthetic they just end up looking…well, cheap.

Callouts can be very helpful visual devices, adding just the right amount of information to a graphic. But make sure that the information is the focal point, not the pointy callout shape.

How do you call out information on your slides? Let us know in the comments.

Topics Covered

Storytelling, Visual thinking

Written by

Doug Neff

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