As a SharePoint consultant, you often wear multiple hats. Not only are you designing solutions for your customers, but there’s also a good chance that you’re the one tapped to create deliverable documentation. Sure…on paper, there are tech writers, designers and other roles that may exist somewhere on the project, but most of the consultants that I’ve come across end up producing a lot of their own docs. This blog post is geared towards helping you produce better, more polished deliverables through the use of graphics & logos.
Graphics Matter
Regardless of the technical scope or depth of the specific document that you’re putting together, including high resolution (relevant) graphics will increase its perceived value and by extension your perceived value. Conversely, if you use logos & graphics that look fuzzy once they’re in the doc, it can come off as a minor league effort, regardless of how well the doc itself is written.
The default number of people that will ever (actually) read your document is pretty low. Some will skim. Some may hunt & peck for the sections that they care about. At the end of the day, we’re all pretty simple creatures and just as it was true in elementary school, pictures are more fun to look at. Better imagery increases the odds that people will digest the content.
You have to think like a marketing department. Unfortunately, you’re not a marketing department and you don’t have the time to troll the internet, looking for the best images.
The images listed below are provided so that you can focus on the real meat of your deliverables and not on making things pretty.
Note: Each image listed below is Microsoft-owned and copywrited material. This content is available publically on the internet. For more information on the legal usage of this content, please visit Microsoft Legal and Corporate Affairs.
Click through each logo (twice) for the full size.