Dr. Ed Bailey's Web Site: Moving Blueprint

This image is from one of Dr. Bailey's books: The Practical Writer (7th edition)

Moving Blueprint

Once you've showed the audience your blueprint slide, you're ready to start with the body of your presentation. You'll want to begin with the "heading" for the first part in the body—and that heading is your first moving blueprint slide.

What is a moving blueprint slide?

A moving blueprint slide is simply a repeat of your blueprint slide. It appears at the beginning of each part of the body of your presentation. This is what the first moving blueprint slide looks like:

Sample good moving blueprint slide (highlighting first topic)

See how this slide serves as a heading for the part on "why we need to improve"?

After this slide, you'll have however many body slides you need for the first part. Then when you're through with the first part, you show your next moving blueprint slide:

Sample good moving blueprint slide (highlighting second topic)

You'll next show your body slides for this part of the body ("how concurrent engineering can help"). Then, when you're through, you show your final moving blueprint slide:

Sample good moving blueprint slide (highlighting third topic)

You follow this slide with the body slides for the third part.

Where do the slides fit into the presentation?

Here's a model showing where the blueprint and the moving blueprint slides fit into your presentation:

Slides for presentation showing where blueprint and moving blueprint slides go

In summary:

The blueprint slide comes at the end of the introduction. It highlights nothing. Its purpose is to name the parts in the body of the presentation.
The moving blueprint slides come at the beginning of each part of the body of the presentation. Their purpose is to serve as a visual heading for that part. They highlight the name of the part.

Tips for a moving blueprint slide

Good moving blueprint slides:

Look just like the blueprint slide—but clearly highlight one part of the presentation.\
Are, like the blueprint slide, instantly recognizable.

Are moving blueprint slides really important to use?

You bet! They take only a second or so to show—and serve as headings. Asking whether moving blueprint slides are important in a presentation is like asking whether headings are important in a longer document.

Is the first moving blueprint slide necessary?

Well . . . not always!

For a computer presentation, I always use one (because it takes just a fraction of a second to click on it).
For a transparency presentation, I always skip it (because I want to cut back on shuffling transparencies on and off the projector).
But I always use the second, third, and any other moving blueprint slides.

Other examples

There are countless ways to make moving blueprint slides. Let's look at two more.

Here are the moving blueprint slides for the Yellowstone presentation:

Sample good moving blueprint slide for presentation on Yellowstone National Park

This design is quite a bit different from just having bullets, isn't it? Don't be afraid to be creative.

Finally, here are the moving blueprint slides for the golf presentation:

Sample good moving blueprint slide for presentation on golf

Another creative approach—appropriate for the lighthearted tone of this presentation.

A quiz

What's wrong with this moving blueprint slide?

Quiz: What's wrong with this moving blueprint slide?

See if you can find one thing wrong.

Ready to see the answer?

Through with the quiz? You're ready to move on to . . .

Your next step

The next slides in the model are the body slides.