Presentation Zen

Using Kuler to create color themes

Although scores of good books on color theory have been written — many even for non-designers — most working professionals just do not have the time to delve deeply into a study of the complexities of using color. The good news is that there are online resources that can help you create harmonious color themes without requiring advance knowledge in color theory. There are a few really good online resources such as ColorSchemer and Colourlovers, but my personal favorite is Kuler. Kuler is a web-based color tool from Adobe that has thousands of community-generated color themes from which you can search, but the best thing about Kuler is that you can easily make your own themes. Once you register with Kuler (it's very quick), you can begin to create your own color themes or palettes and store, view, and retrieve all your saved themes in your personal Mykuler space. There are two ways to create unique color themes: either by selecting a single color on the color wheel as your base color and building off of that, or by importing an image from Flickr or your hard disk and extracting harmonious combinations from the image.

Extract colors from an image
One of the coolest ways to assemble a unique color theme for a presentation is to create a simple palette by extracting colors from a key image that you think represents the appropriate colors for your talk. You can do something similar to this within your slideware application, of course, but Kuler can do it automatically and give you some additional options for tweaking the colors. After you upload an image, Kuler automatically uses its color extraction tool to generate a theme of five colors from the image. You can then adjust the entire theme by changing what Kuler calls the "mood" of the theme. You can select from Colorful, Bright, Muted, Deep, and Dark moods which are based on the colors extracted from your image. After you decide which mood is the best fit, you can then save it to your account, share it with the community if you like, and even download it as an Adobe Swatch Exchange file. To get the theme into your slideware, you may have to take a screen shot of the theme and then use your slideware's color picker to save the colors into a new theme for your presentation.

Sample: Image from nature
In Wabi Sabi Style, James and Sandra Crowley say "Nature is a master colorist. Anything and everything one could possibly want to learn about creating color schemes, color contrasting, and coordination can be gleaned straight from nature itself." So why not try making a unique color theme from a photo of a nature scene.


Above: I used an image not from a photo but from a video clip taken during a trip to the beach last summer in the USA. The sandy, brownish-grays and blues of a (sunny) summer day in Cannon Beach, Oregon create a simple, refreshing palette.


Above: After I saved the original color theme, I chose the "make changes/view color values" option which presents you with many options for adjusting your theme. Here I select a new base color on the far right.


Above: Then I chose "Monochromatic" which adjusts the four other colors in terms of value and saturation — but the hue stays the same (as you can see in the color wheel). The base color of "gray" had a bit of yellow/brown from the rock.

 
Above: The sample slides use colors from the two themes created in Kuler shown above (plus white for the labels). More black was added to the background color in the second slide to increase contrast with the foreground.

Create theme from a color
Any introduction to color theory includes a discussion on the different rules for combining colors. For most people, however, the terms found in color theory are rather abstract; people just want a way to choose and mix colors that form a harmonious relationship. The Kuler website allows you to select a color of your choice and then apply harmony rules such as Analogous, Monochromatic, Triad, Complementary, Compound, and Shades that are based on some of the basic tried-and-true principles from color theory. All you have to do, then, is select a base color and a color rule to quickly create harmonious themes, or use the Custom rule to select colors individually. You can use one of your own themes — or one of the public themes — to create a new theme starting from the selection of a single color. After you decide on a theme, you may want to adjust the relative value of some of the colors — that is, make them lighter or darker — to make sure you have good contrast.

 
Above: Using three colors from a theme called "organic" plus white to create this slide. Not crazy about it, but perhaps it could be used in a presentation on organic farming, etc.

Experiment and play with the tool
You can spend hours playing around with Kuler, but this is not wasted time if it helps you see how color harmonies can be created by adjusting hue, value, and saturation. For actual presentation themes, you'll want to keep the number of different hues to a minimum. The mantra is always to use color for a reason and with restraint, but for the purposes of teaching yourself more about how colors can work together, it's OK to go a little wild sometimes. I'm certain many of you already know about Kuler, but for those of you who do not, I hope you enjoy experimenting with it. Kuler has a great community and it's a wonderful online tool.

  
Colors were extracted from the photo of the salmon and rice to create the color theme.

Update: Please checkout the post on my Posterous site concerning a cool plug-in for saving your themes created in Kuler so that they show up in your Mac apps. (Anyone know if there is something as simple and powerful as Mondrianum for the PC?)

Presentación Zen: Por fin! La versión en español ya está disponible

I'm happy to announce that the Presentation Zen book is finally available in Spanish. The book follows the same design and layout as the original English version. Spanish was the most requested translation so we're delighted that it is finally on sale. I'm not sure exactly where you can get the book in your area, but here is info on the Pearson Educación website.


Above: A photo of the front and back covers.

The Presentation Zen DVD on Amazon and elsewhere also includes Spanish (and Japanese and English) subtitles. Thanks to everyone at Pearson for their hard work and to everyone across the globe who kept requesting a Spanish translation. Muchas gracias!

Muchas gracias a todos los hispanohablantes de todo el mundo.

The art of control without controlling, doing without doing

As a leader — in business, education, or design — how much control do you need? How much can you give up? Is control even the right word? Is it possible to lead without leading? Here is a great TED talk that will get you thinking that has applications for leaders of all types. Former conductor Itay Talgam today runs workshops to help people develop a musician's sense of collaboration, and a conductor's sense of leadership. In this excellent talk at TED Oxford, Itay touches on the art of creating perfect harmony without saying a word by showing the unique styles of six great 20th-century conductors. I point to this presentation for the content, but the delivery and smooth use of video clips to illustrate his points is a good example of how to connect with an audience and get them to think differently.



Questions to consider

• Can you lead with less control or a different kind of control?
• Must "control" be a zero-sum game?
• Is there joy in leading by helping other people tell their own stories?
• Is leadership only about technique or is it more about meaning?
• Are we using team members, employees, or students as instruments for our own ends or are they viewed as partners, where their development is a central consideration for us?
• Is not leadership also about creating the processes, structure, and conditions that allow team members to perform autonomously? Can you still be "in control" and let people be/feel free? Can the structure create the conditions for that freedom?

The best line of the talk: Apparently when Strauss was 30, says Itay Talgam, he wrote the "10 commandments for conductors." My favorite commandment? "Never look at the trombones; it only encourages them." As someone who played trombone in the orchestra all through my school years, I greatly enjoyed that line.

Related
• Benjamin Zander on music and passion

Tokonoma and the art of the focal point

Every good design needs a focal point. This goes for the design of interior living spaces as well. In many Western homes, the mantel place in the living room is often a focal point from which other interior design elements are added in a more or less symmetrical fashion. In traditional Japanese homes or modern homes containing a washitsu (Japanese-style room) it is the Tokonoma (床の間) that serves as the subtle focal point for the interior. The tokonoma (lit: floor/bed + space) is a raised alcove in which Japanese art such as a hanging scroll (Kakemono) or a flower arrangement is displayed. A custom of having this built-in recessed space in a Japanese room goes back more than 500 years, and while the tokonoma has lost much of its early religious nature, it's still very much an honored part of the Japanese room. Standing inside the tokonoma is not allowed. When you gather in a traditional Japanese room, the most honored guest would be seated in front of the tokonoma. However, in another example of traditional Japanese refinement and humility, it's said that the guest should be seated facing away from the tokonoma so that you do not appear to be showing off the artistic content of the tokonoma. In the West, the mantel often has a large picture or other artifact hanging above it that remains for years or as long as the residents occupy the home. By contrast, the art work in the tokonoma changes throughout the year based on the season or the occasion.

Empty "small" can seem "big"
Emptiness can create spaciousness and a feeling of openness even in relatively small areas. Regardless of the size of the washitsu, because Japanese did not use furniture but sat directly on the warm and comfortable tatami mats (historically at least), the rooms had a feeling of spaciousness. This is because there was virtually nothing else in the room to distract your attention. It is the emptiness or exclusion of nonessential decoration or other items that allows even the smallest rooms to feel more spacious and guide the eye to the focal point of the room. Because the room is not cluttered with myriad furnishings, souvenirs, and other possessions, the eye can more easily notice and then linger on the art contained in the tokonoma. A bare washitsu, built with natural elements, is a design with a close connection to nature. This harmonious balance with nature, and the garden just outside the walls of the room, is reflected in the seasonal contents of the Tokonoma itself. In a way, then, the spaciousness of the room extends beyond the room itself to the vastness of the outside world.

Above: Traditional-style tea rooms (chashitsu) can come in many sizes but are typically 4.5 tatami mats in size. The materials to build the tea room (or a tea house) are simple and rustic in the wabi style. The tokonoma in a Japanese tea room is especially situated so that it is the focal point of the room. Because you enter the tea room directly across from the Tokonoma in most cases, the artistic content is the first thing in the room you will notice. As Okakura Kakuzo notes in The Book of Tea, as guests enter quietly into the tea room, they first make "obeisance to the picture or flower arrangement on the tokonoma." The walls of a chashitsu, and traditional Japanese-style rooms in general, are kept bare and simple.

Screens, Scrolls, and Tokonoma
In this video clip below you can view a good explanation of the traditional Japanese interior and see how screens, scrolls, and the tokonoma fit with the Japanese aesthetic concerning space. For example, the folding screen served a clear function for dividing larger spaces, creating private areas, and even blocking out drafts in the winter, but the screens also became objects of art and beauty in themselves. In large Japanese rooms, the screens could also be used to form a beautiful focal point and form a beautiful backdrop for the occasion.



Lessons from the Tokonoma
A few general lessons you can apply to presentation design and other forms of design as well.

• A powerful focal point need not be overbearing or fancy.
• Emptiness creates spaciousness which assists the viewer in discovering the focal point.
• Subtle contrast can more easily create interest when there are fewer elements rather than many.
• Exclusion of the decorative and non-essential from other areas allows a focal point to be created in a composition using only simple elements (or a single element).
• An intentionally created area of contrast brings the viewer in to the primary focal point and guides the eye to the secondary focal point, the third, and so on without confusion.
• Eschew symmetry in favor of asymmetrical balance where possible.
  
  

Samples: focal point in graphics
Below are a few before/after slides. The "after" slides are the kind used in support of live talks where all of the words are coming from the speaker. The slides on the left show a rather arbitrary placement of elements and have poor hierarchy and dominance. There is contrast in the slides on the left but it is not clear why some things stick out and others do not. What are we suppose to look at first, second, third? The eye will tend to wander. The slides on the right have better design priority or focal point. First removing extraneous information from the slides on the left helped in the creation of better clarity for the slides on the right. The samples here are very simple, but the general idea can be applied to more complex slides as well. Just have it clear in your mind where you want people to go first (second, third, etc.) when the visual is shown.

 

 

 

Personal note: Mixing traditional with modern
Early this year, with the help of a great architect, my wife and I designed our new house in the Nara countryside. We'll soon leave the big city for a slower-paced and I hope more reflective life in the country. Although the house would be considered a more modern design, it is a design that includes lots of open space and natural light and includes a washitsu with a tokonoma. Below left you can see the floor plan for the washitsu; the highlighted part is the tokonoma. The picture below right shows the location of the washitsu and tokonoma (arrow) in the house which is still under construction. The elevated room is open to the rest of the house, but the screens can slide shut for privacy when the room is used to house a guest. Though it is a multi-purpose washitsu, we will indeed invite over local Tea Masters from time to time to experience chado or "the way of tea" (tea ceremony). Except for a work of art or two in the tokonoma, the room will remain always empty and free from clutter.

 

Sumi-e, color, and the art of less

A fundamental design and life lesson from the Zen arts is to never use more when less will do. This goes for the use of color as well. The problem with most slide presentations is not that visuals contain too few colors, it's that they contain too many. A common practice is to use several different vivid hues (colors) in presentation slides when even a single hue in various shades or tints would have been more effective. The ancient art of Japanese brush painting called Sumi-e (墨絵) provides a powerful lesson concerning the use of color, communication, and restraints. Sumi-e was brought to Japan from China and is an art deeply rooted in Zen, embodying many of the tenets of the Zen aesthetic including simplicity and the idea of maximum effect with minimum means. In Sumi-e, great works are achieved with only black ink on washi (rice paper) or silk scroll. Using the black ink to achieve several variations of tones, we learn that powerful visual messages can be created with a single "color" in the form of different shades and tints. (The painting on the right is by Kathleen Scott, a talented Sumi-e instructor at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan.)

In Sumi-e, much is expressed through a combination of empty space and monochromatic strokes that range from the extremely light gray to black. Yet a red seal is placed in the composition when the work is complete in such a way that it contributes to the balance of the picture. Red, of course (it's more of a reddish "flesh tone" called shuniku), would pop out in a sea of black, gray, and white empty space and draw much attention to itself. But in the Sumi-e paintings the stamp is small and stands out in a far more harmonious way that serves to anchor the flow of the composition. Sometimes the stamp is meant to be the first thing that attracts the eye; in other works it may be created to serve more as the end point. Either way the lesson is clear: few colors carefully selected and positioned can be more effective than many colors indiscriminately placed.

The value of light-dark
Nōtan (濃淡) is a Japanese concept describing the use of light and dark aspects of a design in a balanced and harmonious way. Whether you use many hues or just shades of gray in your own design work, the effective creation of light and dark elements in a design is fundamental to its clarity. Imagine, for example, a colorful painting that still maintains much of its clarity even in very low light conditions. It was the careful use of light and dark in the composition that contributes to the picture's interest and expressiveness even when the hues become nearly imperceptible. Using colors can be very effective for establishing emphasis or setting a mood, but it's the careful use of the visual's light and dark elements that will contribute most to the visual's clarity. Although the sumi (ink) is black, it is possible through technique to create many shades of gray or many "colors." This use of color and arrangement of light and dark is effective for creating depth and movement in a composition. The lesson from Sumi-e regarding color is simple: more can be achieved with less, not more. 

Expressing the essence with less
The objective of Sumi-e is not to recreate the subject to look perfectly like the original, but to capture its essence — that is, to express its essence. This is achieved not with more but with less. Therefore, useless details are omitted and every brush stroke contains meaning and purpose. The minimum amount of strokes or lines are used to convey meaning. Each brush stroke is meaningful and has a purpose. There is no dabbling or going back to make corrections. The ink is indelible and you have one chance to get it right. The strokes themselves, then, are said to serve as a good metaphor for life itself. That is, there is no moment except for this moment. You can't go back, there is only now.

Sumi-e is another example of an art that embodies the very essence of simplicity and yet is in practice complex and takes a lifetime to master. This aspect of the art of Sumi-e too is a metaphor for life: One never truly masters the art of life or achieves perfection. The pursuit of perfection is the journey, and the journey is what it's all about.

8 key lessons from Sumi-e

1. More can be expressed with less.
2. Never use more (color) when less will do.
3. Omit useless details to expose the essence.
4. Careful use of light-dark is important for creating clarity and contrast.
5. Use color with a clear purpose and informed intention.
6. Clear contrast, visual suggestion, and subtlety can exist harmoniously in one composition.
7. In all things: balance, clarity, harmony, simplicity.
8. What looks easy is hard (but worth it).
   

Applying the lessons to the common slide
Below are two different designs of the same simple bar chart. If we remove the hues by changing the slides to grayscale we can then see the luminance values and the contrast — or lack of contrast — between light and dark areas of the slide.

 
ABOVE The first "colorful" slide is not only a bit unpleasant to look at, it's not clear what part of the chart is emphasized. If we change it to grayscale, the bars for USA and UK look almost the same. For those with some form of colorblindness, it may be unclear which bar is being emphasized, if any. In such a simple chart this may not be a big problem, but for more complex charts this lack of clarity will be an issue. There is a cool website called Vischeck that can check your images or webpage to see how they might appear for people with various forms of CVD (color vision deficiency). Test your images here.

 
ABOVE The orange used in the first slide clearly emphasizes the top bar. When turned to grayscale, the difference in value still makes it clear which bar was emphasized (although the bottom three have more contrast, the top bar is clearly different). Again, with such a simple chart, it may not seem like the biggest thing in the world to get right. But it all matters. And for more complex information graphics, it is essential that we use light and dark effectively.

As color expert Maureen Stone has said: "Get it right in black and white." That is, pay attention to the luminance or value in a graphic, not just the hues (colors). "Remember," says Maureen  "most ideas can be well-presented in black and white. Add color carefully and for a purpose, and your results will be both beautiful and functional." I highly recommend Maureen's wonderfully detailed book called A Field Guide to Digital Color. This is the definitive book on digital color.

Links
• Checkout Master Sumi-e artist and jazz musician Drue Kataoka's website and blog. Impressive person. I always love jazz musicians who see the connection between Zen and jazz (or the other way around).
• Go here on Google to see myriad videos on how to do Sumi-e.

Personal Kaizen: 15 Tips for your continuous improvement

Kaizen (改善) means "improvement" — "kai" (改) means change/make better, and "zen" (善) means good — but as the term is used as a business process it more closely resembles in English “continuous improvement.” Kaizen is one of the keys to the steady improvement and innovation found at successful companies in Japan such as Toyota. Says Matthew May, in his book The Elegant Solution: Toyota’s Formula for Mastering Innovation, “Kaizen is one of those magical concepts that is at once a philosophy, a principle, a practice, and a tool.” Though Kaizen is a tool used by corporations to achieve greater innovation, productivity, and general excellence, it’s also an approach, an approach that we can learn from and apply to our own lives as we strive for continuous improvement on a more personal level. We can call this “Personal Kaizen.” Others have applied the personal kaizen approach to personal efficiency or GTD. You too can take the spirit of kaizen and apply it to your own unique personal kaizen approach to improve — step-by-step, little-by-little — your design mindfulness, knowledge, and skill.

Long-term commitment
The overriding principles of kaizen is that it is daily, continuous, steady, and it takes the long-term view. Kaizen also requires a commitment and a strong willingness to change. I suggest you incorporate these principles into your own personal kaizen approach to learning all you can about design and visual communication over the long term. The interesting thing about kaizen is that big, sudden improvements are not necessary. Instead, what is important is that you’re always looking for ideas — including even the smallest of things — that you can build on. Tiny improvements are OK; over the long-term these add up to great improvements. Each journey begins with a single step — this too is a precept inherent in Kaizen. Keep moving forward.

No end to improvement
There is an old saying that goes “Once you think you have arrived, you have already started your descent.” One must never think they "have arrived." In the West we say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." But the spirit of kaizen suggests that there is always something to learn and ways to improve, and that it is also better to prevent problems than to fix them. So, no matter how good things may seem now, there is always room for improvement, and looking to improve every day is what the spirit of personal kaizen is all about. It’s not about how far you have come or how far you have yet to go, it is only about this moment and being open to seeing the lessons around you, and possessing the capacity and willingness to learn and improve. There are many small things you can do to increase your design mindfulness and skills over time. Here are 15 tips in no particular order.

(1) Keep an analog scrapbook of design examples you find. From napkins to paper cups to business cards and brochures, flyers, and posters — whatever you find remarkable (good or bad) and fits inside a folder, a box, or a scrapbook. From time to time, review the contents of your analog examples and reflect on what works (and what doesn’t) and why. This activity is even better in a group where people occasionally come together and share their scrapbook contents with others in a kind of “examples of design show and tell.”

(2) Keep a digital scrapbook in the form of an online photo blog — either private or open to anyone to view — where you log all the examples of design you find of interest. Usually you can take a snap and then upload it to your blog right from your phone.

(3) Get out of your comfort zone. Participate in something creative that others may think is out of character for you. If you’re always comfortable, you probably are not growing. Dare to be weird (at least sometimes).

(4) Keep stimulating the "right side" of your brain by learning a musical instrument, or rediscovering the instrument you used to play. Playing music is one of those creative “whole mind” activities that will enrich your life (and work). You are never too old to learn to play an instrument.

(5) Read books on graphic design, typography, color, photography, documentary film making, and even architecture and other areas of design — you never know where the design lessons are to be found.

(6) Take some time to examine the packages in stores regardless of whether or not you are interested in the product. What catches your eye as you walk through a shop? Nothing is by accident — what were the designers trying to communicate with the package?

(7) Learn to draw by taking a class using the methods of Betty Edwards (or buy her books and videos). Get Dan Roam’s The Back of the Napkin and learn how to draw and talk at the same time at the whiteboard.

(8) Learn to take better photos. Since you'll be taking so many snaps to learn from and to share, why not get much better at the art of photography? Scott Kelby's books may be a good place to start. You don't have to become as good as the pros, but you can get much, much better. Learn what separates the great photos from the ordinary. The lessons from photography will help in your general guest to become a better visual thinker.

(9) Take an art class at the local community college or university. Don’t worry that it may not have “obvious applications for work.” The art — whatever it is — will teach you lessons about seeing and communicating through form. All you need to do is practice and enjoy the journey. You’ll find, perhaps unexpectedly, that there were indeed lessons in there that you later applied to your own work or personal life.

(10) Go for long walks alone (with ability to record your observations). As you walk, if an idea snaps into your head or you notice something that stimulates your imagination, use the voice recorder in your phone (or other device) to record the idea. It may seem odd, but I often even go jogging with my iPhone just in case I need to take a snap of something remarkable or an idea comes to mind that I need to record instantly. Besides relieving stress and keeping you fit, exercise seems to stimulate ideas. Record those ideas when possible in a way easiest for you.

(11) Get completely unplugged and off the grid — no iPhones or BlackBerrys, etc. — and go for a walk, a hike, a bike ride, or whatever it is that allows you slow your busy mind. And what if that brilliant idea hits you and you can’t record it in any way or take a picture of a remarkable example? Don’t worry about it. Getting off the grid and freeing up your mind (and pockets) is necessary too.

(12) Make it a point to watch TED videos on line, especially those related to design and creativity; many of the presenters also use very effective, well-designed visuals. Subscribe to the TED RSS feed or follow TED on Twitter. Don't forget that many presentations have been translated.

(13) Go for walks in nature with a keen eye for the balance and the colors, lines, shapes, etc. that most people never pay attention to. What visual lessons can you get by stopping to look both at the whole and then zooming in to look at the particular? There is much to be learned by careful observation of nature. Artists already do this, but we can too.

(14) Teach others what you learn. One of the best ways to deepen and solidify your new knowledge is to teach it to others. Give a presentation, run a seminar, teach a class, or volunteer to run a small internal workshop to teach others in your organization what you are learning. Real learning occurs when you share it.

(15) Share your new knowledge and passion about design in a short presentation at your local Pecha Kucha Night, Ignite night, TEDx conference, Users Group meeting, or even your local Toastmasters meeting, and other associations. The more you share and the more you get out to these events, the more you learn.

There are many more things you can do to continuously improve and grow over the long-term. What are some of the things that work for you? I also asked this question on Posterous — checkout the good suggestions by others there as well.

Related books
• One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
• The Toyota Way

Wa: The key to clear, harmonious design

If there is one principle that reveals the essence of the Zen aesthetic found in Japanese traditional art and design — and life in general — it is harmony. The kanji that has been used by Japan for the past 1300 years or so to represent this concept is 和 (wa). Wa is also the adjective used to describe things which are Japanese or in the Japanese style such as Wafuku 和服 (Japanese clothing), Washitsu 和室 (Japanese-style room), Washi 和紙 (traditional Japanese paper), and Washoku 和食 (Japanese cuisine), as I mentioned before. Aesthetically, wa is fundamental to all good design, yet it goes beyond aesthetics. Wa also reads as "gentleness of spirit" (和らぎ), so harmony refers to form but it also refers to an internal feeling or approach to art and to life. The particulars will change depending on the case and circumstance, but the concept is the same: in all things harmony. The idea is since harmony exists inherently in the cosmos and on our planet, we can benefit ourselves and others by learning from lessons found in nature. Wa has direct applications for our personal lives, our relationships, and our whole approach to life and work. Here are just seven things to think about as you strive to bring more wa to your own design solutions.

(1) Embrace economy of materials and means. Traditional Japanese construction and interiors used only natural, available materials, and in art and design too recycling was common. Waste and excess is at odds with wa. Think, for example, of tatami mats that comprise the floor of a Japanese room (washitsu) which were historically made from leftover straw from the harvest. There is a trend now emerging in Japan that embraces the use of more natural and recycled materials under the banner of "eco" or sustainability. How can we bring the principle of economy to our design work? One way is by practicing restraint. Yokusei 抑制 (control, restraint) and setsudo 節度 (moderation) or seigen 制限 (limit) are forms of self-restraint we can practice. It's hard not to give in to the habit of adding more when less would do; this is where restraint comes in.

(2) Repeat design elements. Repeating some elements not only contributes to unity in a design, it's a clear consequence of restraint. You made the conscious decision to limit your palette and techniques and still express the message (or solve the problem) within the self-imposed constraints. We need variety but we need similarity too. Repeating selected elements — just as nature does — contributes to harmony and clarity.

(3) Keep things clean and clutter-free. Shintoism has been called a faith of purification, and historically at least, there was a belief that kami (gods) would not enter a house that was unclean or otherwise in a state of disorder. Disorder is at odds with nature. Consumerism since the war has made for many a clutter-filled house in Japan, but there is a trend toward returning to the good parts of the past: less stuff, more space, natural materials. In design, we must do what is possible to pare down and keep things clean, clear, and clutter free.

(4) Avoid symmetry. Symmetry is not bad — and often it is necessary — but in many areas of design it is derided at the easy and boring answer. The natural world — the mountain or the forest —  is full of beautiful asymmetry. Balanced asymmetry is natural, and in the natural world is where spontaneity lives. Symmetrical designs lack the feeling of movement or spontaneity that we find in nature. Creating balance and harmony in an asymmetrical design is usually a more challenging and creative approach.

(5) Avoid the obvious in favor of the subtle. To the Japanese, there is no beauty in the obvious or the overly direct. Indirectness and subtly, after all, is the stuff of poetry. And should not design — like life itself — be the stuff of poetry? The art of suggestion can be seen in many aspects of Japanese art, design, and language. Think of ways you can design with clarity while also including elements that are subtle and suggestive.

(6) Think not only of yourself, but of the other (e.g., the viewer). Harmony in relationships exits when people put themselves in the other's shoes and think of the greater good of the group. Wa does not exist where one thinks only of oneself. Think for yourself? Of course. Think only of yourself. No. All good designers know this: it's not about me, it's about them (or "us").

(7) Remain humble and modest. Many of us mistakenly feel that strong confidence cannot exist alongside humility and modesty. This is a mistake. True confidence exists only where you also find humility and modesty. Where these are lacking, you see a kind of faux confidence that feels insecure, overly individualistic, and inharmonious. Think of the character Yoda from Star Wars. Yoda embraced all three characters among many others: Humility, modesty, supreme confidence. Be like Yoda.

This slide below contains a quote from The Book of Tea that touches on the importance of humility and other subtle aspects of wa.

Note:
The Duarte Blog posted three short videos of Nancy Duarte and me talking about the presentation landscape, etc. at the whiteboard. We shot this while I was in Silicon Valley last month. There may be a point or two of interest in there for you.

Tokyo: A visual presentation by Joan Jimenez

Like many foreign nationals in Japan, I love living here and can't imagine living anywhere else. I always encourage foreign designers and other creatives to spend time in Japan if they can. For creatives, the design lessons and inspirations are everywhere. Add to that the culture's rich history — including the Zen arts — and the incredible food and famous hospitality, and this is just about the perfect place to study and experience personal and professional growth, especially as it relates to creativity and learning to see and think differently. For many foreign creatives who come here — designers, photographers, architects, artists, writers, etc. — the experience is even life changing. The massive city of Tokyo is but one aspect of Japan that offers its own unique, rich tapestry of visual intrigue and inspiration. It's hard to capture the essence of what Tokyo feels like, but this 5-minute video presentation by Joan Jimenez (Spain) is one of the best short pieces I have ever seen on Tokyo. If you have been to Tokyo, this may bring back memories. If you have not yet been, this video does a good job of giving you the feel for the place. This is a very creative way to show Tokyo.

I love this presentation. Joan has a great eye and makes good use of lines and shapes and movement by taking a lot of tight shots, etc. I do not know how the cinematic effect was achieved in this case. (In Photoshop you can adjust Curves to obtain a similar effect with images.) Some cameras like the Sony HDR-HC7 have a cinematic mode which records in 24 frames with a film-like effect. You can also play with the contrast, saturation, and brightness in video software like Final Cut I assume. This effect makes the darks very dark, whites very white, some colors very saturated, etc. so you lose some of the fine detail, which is the intent. I do not know how he did it (since I do not read Spanish), but I love it. Joan's inspired me to make a similar short film once we move out to countryside in Nara next year.
 
H/T Manu