Multimedia Presentation with Style

Corporate multimedia presentations display the complete overview of an organization; provide information about its products/services in an attractive and appealing fashion, setting the complete marketing platform for a company. Using multimedia technology, add cutting edge animation and graphics to your website, create a user friendly online application, or incorporate multimedia into a business presentation.

Corporate multimedia presentations are extremely effective and stimulating, can be delivered through various platforms i.e. digital, flopy disk, CD-ROM, Video, DVD, VCD and the Internet and can be created for various purposes that include training, shareholder meetings, product announcements, budget reviews, creative consulting, client conferences or distance education.

A multimedia presentation should be able to relay the message in an attractive, visually appealing setting and yet, remain professional at all time. Some key areas of multimedia presentation design to be dealt with are:

Graphics-

• Set up a visual theme and style that remains consistent throughout
• Choose complementary colors for backgrounds, graphics and text. The images should be manageable and with good contrast. Be consistent in the style of graphics.
• Graphic files need to be as small as possible or they will take too long to load.

Text-

• Check on the fonts, styles and colors that would suit your presentation.
• Keep the text short, concise and meaningful.

Media-

• Access to sound and video files are an important decision to be made. They need to be easily seen and any plug-in requirement must be easily accessed.

• Decide which format you want the page to be structured in e.g. tables or frames.
• Choose background and text so there is enough contrast.
• Set as few heading styles and subtitles as are necessary to organize the content and then be consistent.
• Keep the layout print friendly.
• Assume that larger items on a page are more important or have more significance than smaller items.
• Keep the "more to come" section, if any, at the bottom of the page.

Interface design pulls everything together. The layout, content and multimedia are provided a body with interface design:

• Background:
  This sets the scene because it fills all the screen. It balances all the elements on the page and should not overpower the text and graphics.
• Balance:
  Distinct areas on the screen may be set up using windows, panels, frames, borders or tables. The balance and placement of these work best if they are well integrated together without any unnecessary clutter.
• Buttons And Controls:
  These must be consistent and easy to distinguish from the rest of the elements on the page
• Video and Sound:
  These need to have custom controls that are in sync with the styles you are using.
• Animating The Screen:
  This can be done as "animated gifs" or as rollover buttons. Web presentations require skills with Flash and Shockwave software.