Titles at the bottom of slides

Sounds like something taught in a Powerpoint class somewhere. Strange that all across the broadcast industry, we are treated to "lower-thirds" almost as a matter of course (a video term meaning anytime you see text on your TV on the bottom portion of the screen which is almost ANY time there's text on the screen), but your slides being "broadcast" to a screen should be different (maybe what they're really saying is that this is the ONLY thing they could really criticize... envy perhaps? 🙂

Editing THAT particular master is probably not what you want to do as each little cutout has a shadow attached to it which would look quite strange indeed flipped (and not something usually considered "quick" though it's most definitely "dirty"). However, you DO have some options.

Option 1 is mainly if all of your subject is the entire picture (maybe you could crop outside of Keynote in iPhoto say (isn't it wonderful that built into your computer is a useful graphic app like iPhoto and not, say, Microsoft Paint??), you could use the slide with the title at the top and NO cutouts and place rounded rectangles on the screen, make their "fills" your images and give them nice hefty shadows (actually, I just checked and Apple's default shadow setting for that theme works great).

Option 2 is to stick with using the text at the bottom, but don't distract their eyes with anything at the top...a way of saying,"You don't like the title at the bottom because you're looking at the other stuff? Then I'll build that text on FIRST so you CAN'T see anything else THEN build on my images, HA!"

That's all I can think of right now, but I personally like Option 2! 🙂

Not only are lower-third graphics ubiquitous in broadcasting, the same goes for almost any situation where you have a captioned photo. The captions are almost always at the bottom of the image or below the image.

There are two reasons for this. First and most obvious, we use lower-thirds in broadcasting because people are built the way they are: we tend to like to see faces, so with a head-and-shoulders shot, the "important part" of the image, the person's face, takes up the upper two-thirds of the screen. In the lower third there is usually less critical, less animated, and less visually useful material. So instead of burning the person's name on his forehead, we put the graphic across his chest.

Second, and more important for the storyboard template, Anneliese has the right idea. When you are looking at graphic elements, you ARE reading from top to bottom. Think about how you interpret images: Do you first read the caption, then look at the photo to see how it fits? No, you look at the photo first, then look at the caption in an effort to make sense of it!

And of course, if you are using the Storyboard template...that is set up the way it is, because that's the way storyboards are done! 8-)

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

Not ONLY does the Storyboard theme place text at the bottom with images above, but most of Apple's themes and, working from Apple's lead, most of the third party themes as well. (Though there are exceptions)

It would never even occur to me to put a caption for an image above the image. Ever seen subtitles appearing along the top of a movie?

One suggestion if you are using the Storyboard theme - reduce the size of the text for the caption, the default on the main picture slide is too big and overwhelming compared to the size of the image, this may be what is making people think it should be on the top - they are thinking of it as a major title rather than a caption.

It would never even occur to me to put a caption for an image above the image. Ever seen subtitles appearing along the top of a movie?

Placing the heading or title at the top is common in print media - but uncommon for captions - and it is also the model used in the default Powerpoint layouts, including the titles on image slides. People who have only created or watched Powerpoint presentations are used to seeing titles at the top.

But I agree with everything that has been said so far in this thread about labeling at the bottom.

Thinking about it further:

At the top of a slide I would put - section titles for different parts of the talk, titles for text-based slides (read top to bottom).

At the bottom of a slide I would put captions for graphics-based slides - where the caption is adding a bit of extra info about the image/graphic.

Ian,

That is basically how I do things, but thinking about the presentations I have made, I realize I tend to sometimes put a caption at the top and (more often) sometimes at the bottom. Once or twice I have out them at one side. Part of the way I layout the slide is which way I think that prarticular slide looks and works best.

Where the title (or caption) is definitely depends on the set up of the presentation location. If the screen is high enough above the audience that everyone can see the entire screen without someone's head in the way, then by all means, put the captions/titles wherever you please.

But if your situation is anything like mine (a small classroom with 7.5' ceilings and desks almost in front of the screen), no one but the front row might be able to see the bottom third of the screen.

If everyone can see the screen without difficulty, I don't see anything stylistically wrong with putting the title at the bottom--but some people don't have an artistic side to understand what you're doing. The people who complain are probably the ones who weren't listening to your talk in the first place and need a reminder at the top of the page to tell them what you're speaking about...

Damian