I do not use standard Microsoft PowerPoint templates very often, but I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised by this 2010 calendar template on the Microsoft web site. That saved me a lot of time in designing a kick off presentation for a new project. Tons more here.

Recently, I spoke for the finalists of the BizTec business plan competition in Tel Aviv on how to pitch to VCs. The slides were an adaptation from an earlier talk on the same subject.

Most presentations are written by people without a professional graphics, design, or art background (including me). While it is almost impossible to catch up on the technical skills of these professional illustrators, it can pay off to take a daily dive in their work. The blog unstage (link here) is an example of a daily source of information that you should add to your RSS reader. Example below: a poster by Network Osaka.

Tel Aviv uses a very dominant street painting scheme: red-white and you cannot park, blue-white and you can park but have to pay. The colors are so bright that the city looks like one big Formula One circuit. Why not use more modest colors? Grey blue and olive green? The picture below gives an example, freshly painted pavements (you have to re-paint often in the sunny climate here).The same is true for PowerPoint shapes.