I have been thinking for the past year or so that someone should try to teach presentation design skills by writing a story about a poor suffering employee struggling to design a presentation. I thought of doing it myself, although my publisher told me he didn't think it would sell.
But now someone has done it, and quite nicely. Scott Schwertly, of Ethos3 Communications and Slidemagnet.com, with Jake Greene, has written Deck 'Em, a brief ebook that tells a story about how to create stunning presentations. I just read it this morning and I highly recommend it – just $4.99 and a very quick read. Get it here.
The approach taught in this story is what I call Ballroom style. My own work and book focuses more on Conference Room style presentations. For the difference between the two, see this post first, and here for more.