Sitting at my desk within arm's reach are two EduProtocols Field Guides, one of which is personally signed by THE Jon Corippo. The books include activities that build relationships and increase academic performance.
One activity in Book 1 is called THE WORST PRESO EVER! The goal is for students to purposely design a Google Slides presentation that is hard on the eyes as they introduce themselves to the class.
I have taught this lesson at the beginning of the school for years. Of course, as a yearbook teacher who values quality design, after each student gave their 30-second presentation, I congratulated the students for horrible design and said, "Our yearbook will be designed a thousand times better!"
Student Directions
Below are the assignment directions and resources that I posted in Google Classroom. Feel free to copy/paste and modify the lesson. I included the resources. Post Directions & Debrief slides as STUDENTS CAN VIEW FILE. Post #001 Worst Preso Ever as Make a copy for each student.
Assignment Directions
LEARNING INTENTION: I will purposely break graphic design rules.
SUCCESS CRITERIA: I am successful when I give a 30-second oral presentation with the WORST DESIGN I have EVER made.
DIRECTIONS
- Open the Google Slides with your name. Notice that there is a title page + 3 slides.
- Use these slides to introduce yourself BUT the design must be as HORRIBLE as possible.
- HORRIBLE is not a result of the images you choose, but rather backgrounds, fonts, color combinations, and more.
- Give a 30-second oral presentation with your design. Congratulations on the horrible design!
- When you are done, we will briefly discuss reasons why your presentation was so horribly designed.
PRIVATE COMMENT WRITING PROMPT
In the private comments, tell me one of the rules you purposely broke to make the Worst Preso Ever.
Graphic Design Explanation
Slide 1
Worst Preso
Look hard. Do you see the words "I like sunflowers"? No? This is an example of bad contrast. The font color is dark on a dark background.
Better Preso
When the font color and the background contrast, the words are easier to read.
Slide 2
Worst Preso
This design is hard on the eyes for two reasons: 1) the background is an image and 2) the background is too busy to see the text.
NEVER use a background image. The background image is typically distorted. Google, why is a background image even an option???? Remove it and keep the color option.
Better Preso
The above design uses a high resolution Unsplash.com image that covers the slide. I used the Unsplash add-on, but my junior high school students do not have access to add-on on their school Google accounts. When I use Unsplash photos with students, I download them, add them to a Google Drive Folder, and share the link via Google Classroom.
Even with a high quality photo that is an image and NOT a background, the tartan design may be a tad busy. I added a black rectangle on top of the image and reduced its transparency to create a semi-transparent overlay.
(Side note, I know the image is not the Scott tartan, but you get the idea).
I added a semi-transparent overlay before I typed the words. The text is a light yellow to contrast with the now darker background.
Slide 3
Worst Preso
Too many fonts and colors are distracting and hard on the eyes.
Better Preso
Designs should only have 1-3 paired fonts for a professional look. While we will create our yearbook in Google Slides, the yearbook itself will be professional looking. View the #LON19 Google Innovator Academy Yearbook as an example.
I used fontpair.co in this example. Cinzel is the header font while Fauna One is the paragraph font. The color combination came from Canva.com.