The Shape—Yes, The Shape—Of a Great Presentation
Does a presentation have a shape? If it does, what does it look like? And how could you use such a shape to inspire and move your audiences?
Nancy Duarte, the graphic designer who authored the terrific books slide:ology and Resonate, wanted to find out. After years of studying rhetoric, cinema, and other communication forms, she noticed that many of history’s best-known speeches followed the same basic shape.
She discovered that Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address used this shape. So did Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. So did Steve Jobs’ 2007 iPhone launch presentation.
(Click image to see the full size version of Duarte’s shape)
Here’s Nancy Duarte’s presentation from a 2009 TEDx event in New York City, in which she described the shape’s meaning in detail.
Image credit: Nancy Duarte’s Resonate, Chapter 2, pages 36-37. Used with permission.
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Wow! Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
It occurs to me novels can sometimes follow a similar pattern. What is / What can be very similar to Who someone is / Who they aspire to me or Who someone is / Who their nemesis is.
Though I must admit that I love finding new ways of looking at writing, so it could be my own imagination on the matter. Cheers, Brad.