Say it with Charts: The executives guide to Visual communication -By Gene Zelazny.

Say it with Charts – The executives guide to Visual communication
By Gene Zelazny.

The book is a small one and also the content. It should have been better to have a book on presentation, instead of graph alone.

This book about selecting best graphs for presentations.

Pie chart is good for only for one purpose - % of some whole where total counts up to 100%

For item comparison, the bar chart is preferred; when it goes over time, then horizontal chart is better as time goes from left to right and hence it matches (compared to vertical bar charts)

Deviation column chart is for distinguishing, say, the profit making years to losing years

The grouped column chart with either butting against one another or overlapping compares two items at each point in time and shows relationship changes over time.

A subdivided column chart shows how the components contributing to the total vary over the time.

Line chart is good for historgrpah.

Structure visual

Circle with three sections (What)
Followed by different phases
End with full circle (Why)

More info - http://zelazny.com/


More is better: It takes exactly the same amount of time to present 5 ideas on 1 slide as it does to present 1 idea on each of the 5 slides.

Bigger is better: large type or font is better for presentation

Simpler is better

Different is better

Choosing colors: Use background so the colors for the visual stand out. Against black, they use (professionals) use cool colors such as blue and green. For emphasis. They rely on white and yellow.