> aesthetics only matter when trying to sell turds as diamonds
When it comes to printed (or any kind of graphical) communication, form and function are very closely tied. The vertical text at 23:15 is (at least to my western eye) super distracting and hard to read, and I have no idea what I should be looking at on the screen.
Aside from the obviously messed up slides, I think everything there was pretty readable. I think odd layouts might actually help remember the content. When you mention the vertical text slide I can picture it almost perfectly in my head. If it had been just another evenly spaced, clearly typed bullet list among 50 others just like it, I would have a harder time recalling it. However, there is a time and place for aesthetics and that's after the functionality has been clearly established, since he's been giving essentially this same talk for tens of years, he probably could put a bit of time into the slides :)
When it comes to printed (or any kind of graphical) communication, form and function are very closely tied. The vertical text at 23:15 is (at least to my western eye) super distracting and hard to read, and I have no idea what I should be looking at on the screen.