Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

If the creation of PowerPoint in 1984 was a turning point in presentation from overhead transparencies to computer slides, then Al Gore's 2006 documentary,

An Inconvenient Truth also marked a new juncture for presentation design: A slideshow, even one composed of intensely scientific data, needn't look and behave like a dull academic lecture.

To be fair, the presentation ball had been rolling in this direction for a while, but Al Gore's partnering with Duarte Design and the Oscar-winning documentary brought this new graphic and emotion-driven style to a much wider audience.

Gore and Duarte Design employed Apple Keynote for the presentation which allowed them, among other things, to move seemlessly back and forth with video elements--something which is just not possible with PowerPoint. (No, all the animations you see are not possible with Keynote alone.)

Garr Reynolds details Duarte's contributions to the presentation here.

If you haven't seen the movie and still think that your slides really need 5 bullet points a slide, paragraphs of text, multi-colored charts with tick marks and multiple photos on each page, do yourself a favor and watch the movie..