Lori Chollar is co-founder and CEO of TLC Creative Services, Inc., a design studio focusing on presentations and live events, both in person and virtual. Her multi-faceted design background includes traditional graphic and print design, apparel and tattoo design (the temporary kind!), and a whole lot of presentation, template, and multimedia design. Building from a formal degree in graphic design to a thriving freelance business, her company with husband Troy, has grown into a successful corporate design studio. Lori is passionate about good design and good business. Some of her favorite pastimes include critiquing letter spacing and punctuation on public signage, painting and crafting fun things, and travelling the world whenever she can with Troy.
In this conversation, Lori talks about her participation at the upcoming Presentation Summit 2024, being held on location in Oxnard, CA this year from October 20 to 23, 2024, and virtually from November 3 to 6, 2024.
Indezine.com is the official media partner for the Presentation Summit.
Geetesh: Lori, you are delivering a session at this year’s Presentation Summit called Backstage Pass. This session goes behind the scenes to see how great work is produced. Can you tell us more about this session, and what audiences can expect to learn?
Lori: PowerPoint is an amazing canvas that allows us to combine text, graphics, images, and videos into a dynamic presentation. Add to that the ability to animate all those elements and now you’ve got a powerful platform to create some pretty awesome things – all you need is your creativity, a lot of experimenting, and a lot of out-of-the-box thinking!
That being said, I really enjoy being a presentation designer and I love the amazing diversity of projects we work on, such as medical and clinical presentations requiring precision and legibility, mega brands looking to strut their stuff, companies wanting to engage and ignite their sales forces, and brands needing to catch the eye of investors or clients. All this diversity has allowed me and my team to create some very fun and amazing things of which I’ll share a few examples of during my talk. And while it’s fun to share all this “cool stuff” with the audience in hopes to inspire new ideas and concepts in their work, I want to take things a step further.
This year, I’ll be breaking down several of the examples I share, taking them apart and rebuilding them to not only show how we created the slide(s) but also share our thought and production processes. So often we have constraints to work around, brand rules to observe, and of course the occasional limitations in PowerPoint to work around. It’s this process of thinking and working through these constraints that allows us to discover new and fresh things we can do with PowerPoint and with our designs.
Geetesh: This year is the final season of the Presentation Summit. Could you tell us about your experiences at the conference over the years and what will stick with you the most?
Lori: I’ve attended the conference in many, many capacities over the years. What began as hanging out in the pool with our young daughters when my husband and business partner, Troy, attended the first conference, changed into supporting him as he presented technical talks at the conferences, which quickly moved into attending the conferences myself, and then I began speaking and sharing my experience as a presentation designer and business owner. This has been a really good journey.
I enjoy the information that’s shared, whether in seminar sessions, through one of the many vendors, or through conversations with fellow attendees. I’m always learning and being challenged to grow my skills and our business. In fact, one of the best things I ever learned (that saved me so much time and still does today) is a hack an attendee shared during the “Five Minutes or Fewer” sessions at the end of the conference.
I so appreciate the information, the learning, and the relationships this conference offers. In fact, I would say the relationships and partnerships that have come from the conference has been the best part!
Geetesh: As a seasoned presentation designer, what resources would you recommend if someone was looking to elevate their presentations from good to truly memorable?
Lori: Great question! Obviously, I would recommend attending the Presentation Summit and joining all of us in Oxnard, California October 20-23 this year. The Presentation Guild is another excellent and ongoing resource with monthly content, webinars and other gatherings, all centered around the presentation industry. AIGA is another organization for designers that focuses on professional skills, and career development. If you want a book recommendation (I have many), please come find me at the Summit!
What is the Presentation Summit?
For over two decades, Rick Altman has been hosting the Presentation Summit, a highly popular event that is geared towards users of PowerPoint and other presentation platforms.
Indezine.com is the official media partner for the Presentation Summit.
In-person: October 20 to 23, 2024 at Oxnard, CA
Virtual: November 3 to 6, 2024
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.