I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be visiting South America this August to talk and teach lettering workshops in several cities. I'll be bringing books and products form my shop with me, too!. The workshops are booked out but you can join me at the talks. Here's a list of workshops and talks per city.
Although the combination of rich content and a good presenter are seemingly the recipe for a good presentation, there's infinite ways to make these two work together.
Until the date I have attended a number of design talks with very different profiles: research based, emotional, historical, hysterical, theatrical. Although I couldn't derive a formula I have put together a number of key points that I think contribute to making a good, engaging presentation, while enjoying as a speaker (as much as you can!).
I consider myself a relatively outgoing person who can start a conversation pretty easily. Surprisingly, it took me a lot of work to actually get that shine through my presentations. I have worked really hard to improve my public speaking skills and to overcome my shaky-legs-syndrome whenever I go on stage. That required actually going on stage myself several times as well as attending other talks as part of the audience.
If you're interested in giving more talks, this article might be of help.
Good content
Identify a handful of things you want to convey
Rather than telling million stories, focus on conveying a few things with your presentation. Determining a couple of key points will help you organise your information and your slides. Your presentation should reflect your approach to what you do, whether that is research based, experimental or very technical.
Create value with your talk
Anyone in the public can access your website and navigate through the projects. Pushing your clicker while saying “And I have this other project that I did for…” is unprofessional and boring. Your talk should add value to your work and to the audience. What lead you do that, how you came up with that idea? What were your inspirations and personal motivations?
Address your presentation to your audience
Does your audience have deep knowledge on the topic you’re speaking about? Great! You can take the chance to get all nerdy and speak technical language. Now if the audience is not, put some effort into finding the way to talk with easy words and elaborate on certain concepts.
Mind possible translation issues
Expressions may have different meanings across languages. I’m a native spanish speaker and the expression “I hate this or that” is of coloquial used in spanish for stressing your dislikes. I discover recently that the word “hate” in English is pretty strong and wouldn't be nicely received by an audience. Check your script twice, specially when presenting in a foreign language.
Nice content
Graphics and illustrations
Your visuals should look smart and be a good representation of your work. Select carefully the images that illustrate best what you’re saying and sincronize the visuals with your script. Stay away from long introductions to projects followed by a silent slide-show of pictures.
Your slides
Prefer dark backgrounds for your slides and avoid big chuncks of text. Well, that was too subtle: big chunks of text on slides are no go. If you happen to use a quote, or a tweet or a passage of a book, take a minute to stop, read that text to your audience and continue speaking. People will try to read anything that shows up on your slides and won't be listening while doing that.
Proper delivery
Find your tone
Many say that a good joke is always welcome. I think that it is not at all necessary to make an engaging presentation. There’s a number of ways to engage your audience: a story, an emotional experience, an anecdote, a good research, a joke. Timing is everything and a bad joke at the wrong moment may just lead to an uncomfortable moment.
Practice your presentation
Even when you’re a natural born presenter, learning your script, far from making your presentation overplayed allows you to actually be able to improvise and act naturally. When you know your talk by heart, your body gets more relaxed and it becomes a second level of language.
Control the length of the presentation
Ask the organisation what is your time slot and don’t go over that. The common length of a presentation at a design conference fluctuates between 35 to 50 minutes (I think that the ideal length goes from 35 to 40 minutes). Going over time is disrespectful to the organisation, to the audience and to other speakers, too.
Reading vs speaking to the audience
Seeing someone going on stage with a stack of papers instantly sweeps away the 50% of my interest. Even when practiced ahead, the rythm of a read presentation is radically more flat to the ones that speak to the audience directly. If you don’t feel confident enough to do that, having a bunch of notes on your keynote presentation may help you navigate without forgetting any point.
Cutting the nervousness
Speaking to the whole audience
My heart is often beating fast when I go on stage and one of the tricks I use to deal with that is to look at the audience and smile. The audience is real people, look at them! That said, don’t focus on that guy on a red t-shirt sitting on a first road. Raise your head, talk to all of them.
Know the stage
Another thing that helps me deal with my nervousness before going on stage is to be there before speaking. Take the opportunity to go on stage at a refreshment break or before the conference starts.
Enjoy yourself
As a speaker, I’m pretty sure that the best talks I gave are the ones I enjoyed the most. As part of the audience, I remember those talks where the speaker seemed to be enjoying as well. As soon as you go over the first minutes of accelerated heart beat and cold sweat try to come down and enjoy your own story. People are there to listen to you and they want you to ultimately do good.
That said, this is probably the hardest thing to achieve. Having a well structured presentation, with coherent content, nice slides and a lot of practice will get you closer to reach that sweet spot at presenting.
About four months ago I received an invitation to speak at TEDx Río de la Plata in Buenos Aires. Being the largest series of talks in the world I immediately said yes. What I didn’t know is how introspective, transformative and exciting this whole process would turn out to be.
A TED talk is about conveying ONE IDEA and make others understand the world the way you see it. Gerry Garbulsky, TED Director for Spanish language and head of TEDx Río de la Plata told us at our first speaker meeting: think of this as "the talk of your life”. Personal involvement and perspective is what makes this talk unique and transforms the way others see things as well as the way you see what you do.
TEDx Río de la Plata is the biggest independently organised TED in the world. Is a one day event that hosts 10.000 people and the organisation take that challenge very serious. From the very beginning I was assigned two coaches: Adrián Kohan, a physic, teacher and consultant and Mariana Jasper an expert in corporate communication. After introducing what I do and how I do it they posed the first question that would make me think deeply about my work: why do you do what you do?. Answering this question and many others took weekly meetings throughout three months in which the presentation was shaped. Every word and image were carefully selected and polished. Mariana and Adrian’s commitment and professionalism were essential to deliver this talk.
Having the experience of giving presentations at design conferences about lettering and my work, this is nothing like I did before. Puting together a 15 minutes presentation pushes you to be precise with what you want to convey, the words and imagery you choose for that: whatever is not necessary becomes redundant.
The process that begun three months ago concluded last saturday in Buenos Aires. I had the honour to share the stage with many talented and outstanding professionals: scientists, physicists, journalists, musicians and artists from around the world. All of their talks were outstanding, enriching and moving. Additionally, facing a warm crowd of 10.000 people is definitely an image that will stay with me forever.
I come back to Berlin positively transformed by this experience and I’m curious for what’s to come. Thank you so much to all and every one at TEDx Río de la Plata: Adrián Kohan, Mariana Jasper, Gerry Garbulsky, Hache Ariel Merpert, Pau Coto, Jimena Jiterman, Maria Florencia Polimeni, Max Goldenberg, Melina Furman, Fer Salem, Pere Estupinya, Pablo Meyer Rojas, Pablo Lewin, Carolina Salamanca, Eduardo Levy Yeyati, Ary Nosovitzky, Santiago Bilinkis, Hernan Berdichevsky, Mai Canon, César Silveira, Mariano Feuer, Lucia Gagliardini, Silvan Kuperman, Sergio Feferovich, Luciano Melena, Sebastián Gomila, Carina Morillo, Gustavo Pomeranec, Christián Carman, Emiliano Chamorro, And all those I might be forgetting but that where an essential part of this.
The talk will be available soon online for public view. Sign up to my newsletter or follow me on twitter or instagram if you want to be notified
ESPAÑOL
Cuatro meses atrás fui convocada para dar una charla en TEDx Río de la Plata en Buenos Aires. Siendo la serie de charlas más importante y grande del mundo, no dudé en aceptar. Lo que no sabía es cuan introspectiva, transformadora y excitante iba a ser esta experiencia.
Una charla TED se trata de transmitir UNA IDEA y hacer que otros comprendan el mundo desde una nueva perspectiva: la propia. Gerry Garbulsky, Director de TED en Español y coordinador de TEDx Río de la Plata nos dijo en nuestra primera reunión de oradores: piensen en esta como "la charla de sus vidas”. Involucrarse personalmente es lo que hace esta charla única y transforma el modo en que otros ven las cosas y también la forma en que el orador ve su propio trabajo.
TEDx Río de la Plata es el evento TED organizado independientemente más grande del mundo. Es un evento de una jornada para una audiencia de 10.000 espectadores y la organización toma este desafío muy en serio. Desde el inicio me asignaron dos coach: Adrián Kohan, físico, docente y consultor, y Mariana Jasper, especialista en comunicación corporativa. Luego de contarles más en detalle acerca de lo que hacía y cómo lo hacía hicieron la primera pregunta que me haría pensar sobre el significado de lo que hago: ¿por qué te dedicás a esto?. Responder a esta y muchas otras preguntas fue un trabajo que involucró encuentros semanales a lo largo de tres meses en donde la presentación fue tomando forma. Cada palabra e imagen fue seleccionada cuidadosamente. El compromiso y profesionalismo de Mariana y Adrián fueron esenciales para dar esta charla.
Teniendo experiencia a dar charlas sobre lettering y mi trabajo en conferencias de diseño, esto no se compara con nada que haya hecho anteriormente. Preparar una presentación de apenas 15 minutos te empuja a ser preciso y cuidadoso con la selección de palabras e imágenes: todo lo que no es necesario está de más.
El proceso que empezó tres meses atrás concluyó este sábado en Buenos Aires. Tuve el honor de compartir escenario con otros destacados profesionales en su área: físicos, científicos, periodistas, músicos y artistas de todo el mundo. Todas sus charlas fueron excelentes, enriquecedoras y conmovedoras. Hablar delante de un público de 10.000 personas es una imagen que se va a quedar conmigo para siempre.
Vuelvo a Berlín positivamente transformada por esta experiencia y estoy curiosa de ver cómo esto repercute en otras cosas. Muchas, muchas gracias a todos y cada uno en TEDx Río de la Plata: Adrián Kohan, Mariana Jasper, Gerry Garbulsky, Hache Ariel Merpert, Pau Coto, Jimena Jiterman, Maria Florencia Polimeni, Max Goldenberg, Melina Furman, Fer Salem, Pere Estupinya, Pablo Meyer Rojas, Pablo Lewin, Carolina Salamanca, Eduardo Levy Yeyati, Ary Nosovitzky, Santiago Bilinkis, Hernan Berdichevsky, Mai Canon, César Silveira, Mariano Feuer, Lucia Gagliardini, Silvan Kuperman, Sergio Feferovich, Luciano Melena, Sebastián Gomila, Carina Morillo, Gustavo Pomeranec, Christián Carman, Emiliano Chamorro, y todos aquellos que puedo estar olvidando pero que fueron parte de esto.
La charla va a estar disponible online pronto. Suscribite a mi newsletter o seguime en twitter o instagram para poder avisarte.
PIC by La Nación
Preparing my talk at my new working space
I'm excited to be one of the speakers at Beyond Tellerrand Conference in their Berlin edition next week. This is the first talk after a long break from speaking engagements.
I truly enjoy going to conferences. I believe they are great ocassions to meet with colleagues, exchange ideas, get inspired. Is a place to see the work that others make and how they make it, rethinking the way you do stuff. A necessary time-off to set the ground for the future work.
In my talk I'll be sharing the standards that I've defined for my own work. I'll be sharing my process at working in Letter Design and providing the audience with a set of principles to tell good from bad Lettering. Say hello if you're around!
In May 2013 my colleague Giuseppe Salerno and I spoke at Typo Berlin Conference. After some months, we decided to make the presentation available for everyone to see. Watch, we can only assure a good time. Thanks for having us @TYPOBER 2013!
I'm travelling to Bilbao to give a Talk at Selected D Conference. I'll speak about drawing letterforms and the importance of sketching on design processes.
We will be presenting our project at Giornata della Tipografia in Lugano Switzerland. Together with Giuseppe Salerno we will be also holding a workshop. More information on the talks and workshop here.
I'll visiting Buenos Aires in September! And will be giving a seminar on my techniques and methods to draw lettering and type at VIRGEN | Espacio de Diseño Gráfico . Save your spot if you're close!
Tags: buenos aires, latinamerica, lettering, letters, presentation, talk, techniques, type, typography, Workshop
I will be participating in a group lecture in the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin. Together with designers Dan Reynolds and Martin Wenzel we will talk about nowaday's approach to teaching type design. The event is organised by Prof. Bernard Stein (Kunsthochschule Kassel) und Florian Hardwig (Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig) and will take place in the frame of the exhibition „On–Type: Texte zur Typografie“.
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CONTACT US
Sparrstraße 20,
13353 Berlin, Germany (by appointment only)
+49 (0) 30 33877574
Sparrstraße 20,
13353 Berlin, Germany (by appointment only)
+49 (0) 30 33877574
Sparrstraße 20,
13353 Berlin, Germany (by appointment only)
+49 (0) 30 33877574
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