Black In The Back

     I recently took a class that taught me an unintended lesson. In fact, it was a lesson I had learned many times before, and always the hard way.

     The class was a certification course for my state's EMS instructors. It was a great learning experience, but part of it called for each of us to give a 10-minute sample instructional presentation with our choice of AV materials. I felt pretty comfortable with that part, and designed what I thought was a really good-looking screen show. The room didn't look bad on the first day of class, and there were lots of switches on the wall, so I was pretty sure there would be lighting options.

     Unfortunately, the projector we were using turned out to be real wimpy. In addition, the room was bright--certainly not well designed for screen shows. The lights were either all on or all off, and both of those situations are death to a presenter. If you leave them on, you can forget your colors. Turn them off, and you can't make eye contact with your participants. I chose to leave them on. Sure enough, there went my colors.

     Color and contrast are important, and I know something about them. But that room and the projector in it made me look like a dope, reversing the contrast of my primary and secondary colors and making some of my slides unforgivably hard to read. Fortunately, the instructors and audience were EMS people. EMSers will forgive you for just about anything, except maybe not being prepared or showing up late.

     I am now reminded of something I learned from a wise teacher named Mike Taigman. For years, even in the mean old slide days, Mike has always preferred black backgrounds and bright foreground colors. Why?

     Black backgrounds don't show up. You can't see the edges of your slides, only the content. And, if you do even a modest job of picking bright colors for your text and graphics, it doesn't much matter whether the lights are on or not. Even in a presenter's room from hell, your visual message will come across loud and clear.

     Personally, I will always prefer color in my backgrounds. But if your message is crucial and your venue unpredictable, you just can't beat a black background.

Thom Dick has been involved in EMS for 37 years. He is the quality care coordinator for Platte Valley Ambulance Service, a community-owned, hospital-based 9-1-1 provider in Brighton, CO. Contact him at boxcar_414@yahoo.com.