My Msc lab held a Pecha Kucha day in 2006, and this is the talk that I gave, on visual design in science (co-written with my wife, a design and art student at the time).

1. Visual Design in Science
Steven Hamblin & Brandy Williams

2. Design is thinking made visual.
-Saul Bass

3. At a glance we
detect the following
without conscious
awareness.
!
•
•
•
•
•
motion
edges of shapes
colour
contour
contrast

4. We tend to disregard anything that isn’t
meaningful or useful at the moment.

5. This has the visual impact of alphabet soup.

6. simplicity is not easy

8. Bad:
Napalm in Vietnam
- AP reporter Nick Út was among a number of reporters sent to the
small village of Trang Bang along Route 1
!
- The South Vietnamese commander of the unit requested an air
strike and propeller driven Skyraiders, Korean-war vintage planes
from the 518th Vietnamese Airforce Squadron, dropped Napalm on
the village.
!
- When the smoke cleared villagers from the Trang Bang ran
screaming from the village to the soldiers and reporters up the road.

10. Informational Hierarchy
tells you where to look and what is important.
It deals with:
!
!
Font choice
Colour
size
placement
grouping
weight &
scale

11. Before & After
This is an
example of
great
informational
hierarchy

12. !
composition
is all about how the eyes
move over a
visual presentation.
awareness of this
allows you to
control
not only how the eyes
move over your work,
but also allows for easy
reading and a positive
impression by the viewer.

13. About invisible lines:
Or here.
Our eyes like
it when there
is something
here.

15. A little bit about fonts
!
1. Comic Sans - just don’t do it. Ever.
2. Don’t use more than two fonts.
3. Choose either a serif or sans serif font.
Don’t mix them.

16. dynamic design

17. Don’t just talk, tell a story...

18. This is not good.

19. This
is
better.

20. The more strikingly visual your
presentation is, the more people will
remember it. And more importantly,
they will remember you.
- Paul Arden