Prezi, cont.

To continue the point on Prezi as a design communicate alternative: June 6 Brian Libby with ARCHITECT magazine published an article “Beyond Powerpoint” that discusses various forms of engagement that young architects are using to interact and convey information to clients, the project team, and their peers.

In the article John Peterson of Public Architecture notes that his company is also trying out Prezi as well. He notes, “It’s…about presenting in a new way, rather than just improving what we’re already doing.”

I think that point is critical to the adoption of these new technologies for presenting information. Architects have to adapt our presentation style to more contemporary practices in visual communication. The brilliance of Prezi is that one can negotiate between several scales and drawings types, allowing the relationship between these form intuitively with the client instead of trying to convey these relationships directly using conventional architectural annotation.

I for one hope for the day when we can begin to pull away from the 2d plane that Prezi provides and begin to discuss spatial geometry in 3d, while maintaining the interface benefits of Prezi style navigation.

Prezi / Linked In

So I have begun using Prezi to give presentations because it works so much better than slideshow software (ie, powerpoint) at presenting architecture. I can zoom out, compare two areas side by side, insert media, etc. The information I reveal from item to item is more seamless, and the ability to compare between various points in the presentation on the fly (for questions, etc.) is amazing.

At the same time while I’ve been wary of jumping on the social networking bandwagon, I finally broke down and signed up for LinkedIn. While I am cautiously optimistic at this point, it seems to provide a bit more use than the fractured direction of facebook.

LinkedIn Profile:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ryan-collier/51/963/853

In any case, to get the effect of both Prezi and LinkedIn, check out the prezi I stumbled upon which discusses the use of LinkedIn using the Prezi presentation style. While I doubt I will implement all the suggestions, it’s a good presentation of making the most of LinkedIn.

Using LinkedIn as a Tool on Prezi

nervous system

slide bars and rotate dials to design your own jewelry – the price updates on the fly and the piece can be rendered in polygonal or “smoothed preview”. The interface is developed in programing – definitely worth a look.

In an age of choice anxiety, somehow this gives you the ability to massage the item and gives you exactly what you want, without the overwhelming experience of seeing every option rendered out in its entirety – brilliant.

[link]

Adobe Kuler

I, for one, am not a color person. I like grey, black, white, and red (as you can tell from the background). However, there are cases where a smart use of color can really help. So for those of us who are color challenged, I will today discuss project Kuler by your friends at Adobe.

Kuler is a setup which allows the user to either create a color palette from rules based on basic color theory or choose a pre-made color palette from Adobe or another user. Kuler will also create a palette based on a photo. As shown below, each palette provides more color data than you probably need.

In addition there is also a color pulse which is, according to the site, “a big picture view of color.” This allows the user to see a diagram of world color use via a color wheel dot diagram. On the right side of the panel is a histogram summarizing the dot diagram. I think both are very cool.

In addition to all this, which is only available online or through the Adobe desktop AIR applet, Adobe has provided the tool inside Photoshop. Basically, they’ve taken all the fluff out of the website applet and coded it straight into the software. Find it at Window > Extensions > Kuler. Very cool.