Figma: The video discusses 11 useful features in Figma Slides for creating presentations efficiently.
strymon: MIDI clock synchronizes devices by broadcasting a global pulse across all channels.
The Wall Street Journal: Costco's Kirkland Signature brand revolutionized private labels by consolidating under one name, offering high-quality products at lower prices, and using it as a negotiation tool with suppliers.
Figma - Figma for Edu: 11 things that just make sense in Figma Slides
The video outlines 11 features in Figma Slides that enhance presentation creation. These include automatic background contrast adjustments for text visibility, a variety of templates for easy slide creation, and a grid view for organizing slides. Slide numbers can be added and formatted across all slides, and multi-edit allows simultaneous editing of elements on multiple slides. Components enable reusable elements that update across all instances. Speaker notes can be added for presenter guidance, and videos can be embedded with playback options. Present mode allows offline access and audience sharing. Live interactions like polls and prototypes can be integrated, and Smart Animate facilitates smooth transitions between slides. These features streamline the design process and improve presentation quality.
Key Points:
- Automatic background contrast adjusts text color for visibility.
- Templates offer pre-designed slides and customizable styles.
- Grid view provides an overview and organization of slides.
- Multi-edit and components allow efficient editing and updates.
- Smart Animate enables smooth transitions between slides.
Details:
1. 🎨 Introduction to Figma Slides Features
- Figma Slides automatically adjusts text color based on background contrast, enhancing accessibility.
- Dark backgrounds result in white text, while light backgrounds result in black text, ensuring readability.
- Figma Slides includes real-time collaboration features, allowing multiple users to work on the same presentation simultaneously.
- The platform supports integration with other tools, streamlining the workflow for designers.
- Figma offers a range of design elements and templates to help users create visually appealing presentations quickly.
- The tool provides a seamless experience across different devices, maintaining consistency and accessibility.
2. 🖼️ Templates and Styles
- The template picker allows for selecting and browsing various slide templates within Figma, offering flexibility in design choices.
- Users can choose specific templates like the 'university course syllabus' and easily add them to their deck, enhancing efficiency in slide creation.
- Template colors can be remixed and applied across all elements of selected slides, facilitating cohesive design changes.
- Multiple slides can be selected and remixed simultaneously, allowing for consistent styling across a presentation.
- Templates come with a typographic hierarchy (title header, subheader, body, and caption) and predefined color palettes, streamlining the design process.
3. 🔍 Grid View and Slide Numbers
- Figma slides offer two viewing modes: slides view and grid view, allowing users to switch between a detailed or an overview perspective of their presentation.
- Grid view provides an eagle eye view of all slides, facilitating easier navigation and organization of the presentation.
- Users can create new rows and slides within the grid view to map out the presentation efficiently.
- Holding the shift key enables the selection of multiple slides, which can then be moved collectively to a different row, enhancing organizational flexibility.
- The shortcut for toggling between grid view and slides view is 'shift + period', allowing quick transitions between the two modes.
4. 📝 Multi Edit and Slide Numbers
- Figma slides now have the ability to add slide numbers, addressing a highly requested feature by users.
- Slide numbers can be inserted via the inserts menu or by pressing shift + I.
- Options include choosing whether to count all slides or only the slides within a specific row.
- Users can include the total number of slides, e.g., 'slide 3 of 12'.
- Slide numbers can be added to all slides in a deck with a single action.
- Slide numbers adjust automatically when slides are moved around.
- Formatting of slide numbers can be changed and reapplied to the entire presentation.
5. 🔄 Components and Reusability
- The multi-edit functionality allows users to edit multiple slides simultaneously, significantly enhancing workflow efficiency by reducing repetitive tasks.
- Users can select matching layers to apply changes to all identical objects, ensuring consistency across slides.
- Alignment tools are available to maintain consistent positioning of objects across multiple slides, improving overall design uniformity.
- For example, users can edit footer text once and apply the changes to all slides, saving substantial time in presentation updates.
- A shortcut, such as the 'Enter' key, provides quick access to multi-edit features, increasing the speed of workflows.
- The functionality supports easy relocation and alignment of selected text or objects, facilitating streamlined slide design.
6. 🗒️ Speaker Notes and Video Integration
- Reusable components allow updates to be made in one place, affecting all slides where they are used, enhancing consistency and saving time.
- A footer component, including elements like slide numbers, can be integrated across all slides to maintain uniformity.
- In Figma, combining logos, text, and slide numbers into an auto layout frame can be converted into a reusable component.
- Any updates to the main component, such as text changes, propagate across all instances, ensuring consistent presentation formatting.
- Multi-select and multi-edit functions in Figma streamline the process, allowing for efficient management of presentation elements.
- Text style adjustments, such as changing from header to body, apply globally when set in the component, maintaining a consistent look.
- The use of components significantly reduces editing time and enhances presentation management by ensuring uniformity and ease of updates.
7. 🎥 Video Settings and Present Mode
- Figma slides allow for easy addition of speaker notes, which can be shown or edited during presentation mode, providing flexibility for presenters using dual screens.
- Videos can be integrated into presentations if they are in MP4 or MOV format and under 100MB, allowing dynamic content without compromising performance.
- Video settings in slides offer autoplay, loop, sound, and playback controls, enhancing the presentation experience with flexible media options.
8. 📡 Present Mode and Sharing Options
- Present mode includes an option to make presentations available offline, ensuring videos play correctly even without internet connectivity.
- Keeping the presentation tab open allows full navigation of the presentation offline.
- Users can share presentations by copying an audience link, enabling the audience to follow along seamlessly.
9. 🔗 Live Interactions and Prototypes
- Live interactions can be added to presentations, such as polls, allowing real-time audience engagement and feedback.
- Polls can include options like 'Love it', 'Like it', and 'It's okay', providing immediate feedback on presentations.
- Prototypes from Figma can be integrated into presentations for interactive critiques, allowing real-time navigation and adjustments.
- Presenters can control poll visibility, either hiding or revealing results to the audience as needed.
- Interactive prototypes enable audience participation by navigating and interacting with the design directly during the presentation.
10. ✨ Smart Animate and Slide Transitions
- Smart Animate simplifies creating animations between frames in Figma Design's prototyping tool, allowing for seamless slide transitions.
- Users can duplicate slides using Command D (Control D on Windows) to progress animations easily.
- Transition options include dissolve, push, slide in/out, move in/out, with Smart Animate offering the smoothest transitions.
- Animation duration can be set by adjusting the ease in and out curve, such as setting it to 350 milliseconds for optimal effect.
- Smart Animate requires similarly named objects across frames for effective animations, emphasizing the need for naming consistency.
- Text editing across multiple slides is streamlined using multi-edit text mode, enabling batch changes across selected frames.
- Easing types, such as 'quick', can be adjusted to modify transition speeds, offering customization in animation pacing.
- A slide reminder about Smart Animate can be integrated into presentations, enhancing user engagement with its features.
11. 📚 Recap of 11 Features in Figma Slides
- Background contrast feature automatically adjusts text color based on the background for better readability.
- Templates can be published and mixed, including layout and style consistency across slides.
- Grid view allows easy switching with shortcut shift + period for better slide management.
- Slide numbers can be easily inserted and updated globally from the insert menu.
- Multi edit enables simultaneous editing of selected objects across multiple slides, enhancing efficiency.
- Components feature supports creating and updating reusable elements with automatic updates across instances.
- Speaker notes are available for adding key presentation points to assist during delivery.
- Video integration includes adding videos with looping and player visibility options for dynamic presentations.
- Present mode supports interactive sharing, commenting, and offline presentations by downloading slides.
- Live interactions feature enables adding voting, polls, and interactive prototypes for audience engagement.
- Smart animate creates animations across slides for smooth transitions and engaging presentations.
strymon - MIDI Clock Basics With Sean Halley
MIDI clock is a synchronization pulse that ensures devices stay in time with each other. It broadcasts globally across all 16 MIDI channels, meaning it cannot be limited to specific channels. This requires careful management of which devices receive and use the MIDI clock. Devices can typically ignore the MIDI clock through a menu command. Additionally, the MC6 Pro allows users to limit which cable the MIDI clock is sent through, providing some control over its distribution.
Key Points:
- MIDI clock synchronizes devices by broadcasting a pulse across all channels.
- It operates globally, affecting all 16 MIDI channels simultaneously.
- Devices can ignore MIDI clock through menu commands.
- MC6 Pro allows limiting MIDI clock to specific cables, not channels.
- Proper management of MIDI clock distribution is essential.
Details:
1. 🔄 Understanding MIDI Clock Synchronization
- MIDI clock allows devices to synchronize their timing, crucial for maintaining rhythm and coordination in music production.
- Devices such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers often rely on MIDI clock to align their start, stop, and tempo settings.
- A MIDI clock signal is typically sent 24 times per quarter note, ensuring precise timing across devices.
- Common issues with MIDI clock synchronization include latency and jitter, which can be mitigated by high-quality cables and interfaces.
- Understanding the role of MIDI clock in live performances and studio settings can enhance the efficiency and creativity of music production.
2. 🎵 Synchronizing Different Note Delays
- Different note delays, such as eighth notes and 16th notes, can be synchronized effectively when set to the same tempo, like 121 beats per minute.
- Synchronization is crucial in music production to ensure that various elements of a track are aligned and cohesive.
- To achieve synchronization, one must ensure that different rhythmic patterns are aligned to a common tempo grid, allowing seamless interplay between different note values.
- For example, at a tempo of 121 BPM, an eighth note delay aligns every 0.5 seconds, while a 16th note delay aligns every 0.25 seconds, creating a structured rhythm.
- Utilizing a digital audio workstation (DAW) can help visualize and adjust these delays for perfect synchronization, providing tools to lock different note delays to the same tempo.
3. 🌐 Global Nature of MIDI Clock
- MIDI clock is a global command in the MIDI environment, broadcasting to all 16 channels simultaneously.
- It is not possible to limit MIDI clock to specific channels; it affects all channels at once.
- Management of receiving devices is crucial due to the simultaneous broadcast to all channels.
4. 🎛️ Managing MIDI Clock Distribution
- Devices that listen to MIDI clock can usually be set to ignore it through a menu command, allowing them to avoid unwanted synchronization and maintain independent operation.
- The MC6 Pro provides the capability to limit MIDI clock signal distribution by cable, though not by channel, which is crucial for controlling MIDI signal paths and preventing interference.
- Users can manage MIDI clock more effectively by leveraging the MC6 Pro's feature to only send the clock through selected cables, optimizing synchronization across devices.
The Wall Street Journal - Why Costco Went All in on Kirkland — and How It Paid Off | WSJ Case Study
Costco's Kirkland Signature brand, launched as a single private label, defied industry norms by consolidating various products under one name. This strategy was risky, as retailers typically use multiple private labels to avoid negative associations across products. However, Costco's approach allowed them to control manufacturing costs and offer products at lower prices, with a strict markup policy of 14% compared to the typical 24-30% for name brands. This consolidation also provided a powerful negotiation tool with suppliers, as seen in their dealings with diaper manufacturers, where they chose to carry only Huggies and Kirkland diapers, leveraging their limited SKU environment to dictate terms. Kirkland's success is evident in its $86 billion sales, surpassing major brands like Proctor and Gamble. Despite its success, replicating this model is challenging for other retailers, as seen with Sam's Club's attempt with Member's Mark. Costco's unique membership model and strategic use of Kirkland Signature continue to drive its growth, with plans to expand offerings like Kirkland Sushi in the US.
Key Points:
- Kirkland Signature accounts for one-third of Costco's sales, offering high-quality products at lower prices.
- Costco's single private label strategy defies industry norms, consolidating products under one brand to enhance recognition and trust.
- The Kirkland brand serves as a negotiation tool, allowing Costco to dictate terms with suppliers and maintain competitive pricing.
- Kirkland's success is hard to replicate, with few retailers adopting a single private label strategy.
- Costco plans to expand Kirkland offerings, leveraging its membership model and strategic product selection.
Details:
1. 🌟 Kirkland Signature: A Retail Revolution
- Kirkland Signature products are often placed next to name brand items at a slightly lower price, providing customers with cost-effective alternatives.
- The Kirkland brand is considered a benchmark in the industry for what can be achieved with a private label, demonstrating the potential success of house brands.
- Currently, Kirkland accounts for approximately one third of Costco's total sales, highlighting its significant contribution to the company's revenue.
- The creation of a single private label, Kirkland Signature, was a strategic move that defied the prevailing industry trend of having multiple private labels divided by product type.
- Costco's strategy to develop Kirkland Signature as a sole private label has served as a powerful negotiation tool, influencing the dynamics of big box retail and offering a competitive edge.
- Kirkland's marketing strategy focuses on simplicity and quality, often using minimal packaging to emphasize affordability and value.
- Successful Kirkland products, such as their signature olive oil and wine, have consistently received high ratings from consumers and critics alike, illustrating the brand's ability to compete with premium products.
- Kirkland Signature has set new standards in private labeling, encouraging other retailers to adopt similar strategies to boost their own brands.
2. 🛍️ Costco's Unique Business Model
- Costco's business model focuses on carrying a limited selection of name brands, enhancing inventory control and reducing complexity.
- The emphasis on limited SKUs allows Costco to sell large quantities of fewer items, optimizing shelf space and reducing costs.
- By not carrying all the SKUs that other retailers carry, Costco differentiates itself and simplifies the shopping experience.
- This strategy contributes to Costco's competitive advantage by creating a perception of exclusivity and reducing decision fatigue for customers, enhancing overall satisfaction.
3. 📈 The Rise of Private Labels
- Costco strategically reduced its product offerings to only 4,000 high-quality items, significantly less than the typical 140,000 items in other stores, and emphasized bulk purchases and prominent displays to enhance customer value.
- Market data showed a discrepancy where the production costs for branded goods were falling, yet their retail prices were rising due to Wall Street pressures, which Costco saw as an opportunity to expand its private label offerings.
- Jim Sinegal, co-founder of Costco, identified this price discrepancy as a growth opportunity for Costco's private labels, allowing them to offer competitive pricing and attract cost-conscious consumers.
- The 1991 Forbes article revealed a European consumer trend shifting from branded products to private labels, inspiring Sinegal to leverage this insight for Costco's strategy.
- Sinegal proactively urged his team to study the Forbes article, understanding that the rising prices of branded goods presented a strategic advantage for developing Costco's private label market.
4. 🏷️ The Kirkland Consolidation Decision
- Costco implemented a strict maximum product markup of 14%, significantly lower than the typical 24-30% markup by other retailers, providing a competitive edge in pricing.
- The creation of private labels enabled Costco to manage manufacturing costs efficiently, allowing for a lower starting price and a slightly higher markup, enhancing profitability.
- Costco's private label portfolio included brands like Chelsea toilet paper, Cloud detergent, Traditions, and Pinnacle, which initially confused both employees and customers due to lack of strong brand identity.
- An incident where a warehouse manager in Los Angeles did not recognize Pinnacle as a private label brand highlighted the internal and potential customer confusion.
- To address these challenges, Costco decided to consolidate its private labels under the single, recognizable brand name Kirkland, improving brand clarity and customer recognition.
- This strategic consolidation aimed to reinforce brand identity and streamline marketing efforts, ultimately enhancing consumer trust and loyalty.
5. 🔄 Strategic Brand Decisions
- Consolidating multiple labels under one brand is generally avoided by retailers to mitigate risks; a single negative experience can impact the entire brand perception. This insight highlights the importance of maintaining distinct brand identities to protect overall brand equity.
- Sears' historical success with multiple store brands across different categories illustrates the effectiveness and challenges of diverse branding strategies. Their approach serves as a model for successfully managing brand diversity while addressing organizational complexities.
- Costco's decision to establish 'Kirkland Signature' instead of using its own name demonstrates strategic brand positioning. This choice was influenced by their extensive business relationships with other entities, ensuring brand independence and focus.
- Kirkland Signature's expansion to over 350 products, while maintaining a limited SKU environment, exemplifies strategic product management. This approach supports Costco's private label success by balancing variety with simplicity, a nuanced strategy often overlooked.
6. 📊 Kirkland's Impact on Suppliers
- Kirkland's entry into a category increases competition, impacting supplier sales and potentially displacing existing products.
- Kirkland, part of an $80 billion brand, provides Costco with significant leverage in pricing negotiations.
- Example: For Kirkland diapers, Costco negotiated with Proctor and Gamble and Kimberly Clark, ultimately choosing Kimberly Clark for production based on the best deal.
- Costco's limited SKU strategy allows it to choose only one major brand alongside Kirkland, enhancing negotiating power.
- Costco monitors categories closely and shifts suppliers for better quality or pricing, exemplified by switching to Cuties manufacturer First Quality.
- The strategy of fewer products on shelves allows Costco to be selective and strategic, enhancing Kirkland's value proposition and meeting shopper needs.
- Kirkland's presence on numerous products leads to frequent negotiations across all product categories in Costco warehouses.
- Additional Example: Kirkland Signature olive oil maintains high quality and competitive pricing through strategic supplier relationships, impacting market dynamics.
7. 🌍 Private Labels vs. National Brands
- In 2024, sales for private labels like Kirkland grew about four times faster than national brands.
- Kirkland achieved $86 billion in sales last year, surpassing major brands such as Proctor and Gamble and Kraft Heinz.
- Sam's Club's private label sales nearly doubled after consolidating to a single brand, Member's Mark, indicating a successful strategy shift.
- Sam's Club simplified its products into a single brand to reduce confusion for its members, aligning with a strategic focus on clarity.
- Club channels like Costco and Sam's Club are outperforming other mass retailers in the private label food and beverage space, showing significant growth over the last year.
8. 🚀 Kirkland's Future and Strategic Growth
- Kirkland Signature is used strategically to ensure competitive pricing and better quality on name brands, showing value to membership.
- Revenue from Kirkland is expected to increase with plans to expand offerings such as Kirkland Sushi in US stores.
- The company does not enforce quotas for Kirkland product development, preferring organic growth and opportunity-based expansion within categories.
- Every Kirkland product since 1995 has been approved directly by the CEO with a 'green ink' signature, a tradition that continues today for final product approvals.
