When Will They Ever Learn...
May 25, 2004
In my work with the CCSB, I run into all kinds of people who use PowerPoint, some rather religiously (pardon the pun). Obviously I see the whole spectrum of quality in these presentations, depending on the user's ability and experience with the program. The rather shocking thing to me is how often I see old school clip art (circa 1992) creeping into today's presentations which, without such graphics, might look halfway decent design-wise.
Well, after taking the new Office 2004 for the Mac for a test drive, I know why these little buggers continue to plague us...
I should backup a bit. I have not used Powerpoint very much in the past, and have not used it at all in the last couple of years (Thanks to Keynote). I decided to take a look at the newest version of PPT during my test run with Office 2004.
The new version was interesting, and I wasn't sure what was new and what wasn't, so I started looking around. The first thing I noticed was some pretty sharp looking themes for master slides. Not to the quality of Keynote, but much closer than previous things I had seen. So, score one for PPT. Then, as I was looking around the menus, I saw the old Microsoft standard.
Insert -> Picture -> Clip Art. Uh-oh...
I opened it up, and there it was. The culprit had been exposed. My mind was flooded with memories of seeing these scattered across presentations, web sites, church announcements, etc for years and years. The "Clip Art Gallery" was chock full of old favorites like our buddy the traffic cop above. A near 10 MB's of this low rent waste of space. No wonder it's everywhere...
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not one of those Mac guys. I am not a zealot. I do not believe that Microsoft is evil, or Bill Gates is Lucifer himself. I think Microsoft gets a few things right (their server OS, for example). I also think they get quite a bit wrong (their regular OS, for example). However, the two companies really begin to part ways when it comes to design awareness. The symbol libraries that come with Keynote are sharp, photo-based images that match up very well with the provided templates. This aids a person not inclined to design their own graphics to jump right in and start preparing clean, modern presentations right away.
One more reason creative pro's choose Apple more times than not and why you should too...
Filed under Apple, Design, Rants, Technology
Comments
Doy says:
Some of that stuff actually has me LONGING for the olden days of the black ink stick men that used to be the staple of PowerPoint (you remember them?) At least those guys were simple black and blended with just about any theme.
Not that I would ever wish those confounded things on ANY PowerPoint presentation. I actually saw them in a presentation recently and laughed out loud.
Alas, however, they went the way of the Backstreet Boys tune, "(insert any Backstreet Boys tune here)", which got played so many times it brought about worldwide nausea.
I think this is where Microsoft's insistence on having more geeks than designers really bites them in the rear end.
Example: Macworld 2003: "...and now Excel allows you to control the transparency of backgrounds!!" (Cricket noises, silence)
JDM says:
Unfortunately, most people don't realize that you should NEVER EVER use the standard microsoft clipart. It's the kiss of death and just screams, "amateur".
-jdm
Comments are closed for this entry
bennington Purcell says:
Clip art, ugh. I agree, Microsofts inability to correct that is one of their greatest mistakes (they do have many). Why this horrendous practice started in the begining is a mystery to anyone, and why the spread this terrible little low quality attempts at Vector to every program will remain a mystery till their dying day