Is Clip Art Ever Okay?

To paraphrase my friend Scott Schwertly from his book How to Be a Presentation God…

If you’re comfortable walking into a
client meeting with a clip-on tie, 

then by all means go ahead and use clip art.

While the umbrella of “clip art” can include tasteful and professional images or graphics, in general it defines cheesy, stereotypical and juvenile artwork. Of course, no one wants to be perceived by an audience or client as cheesy, but with clip art there’s a greater danger lurking than simply being tagged as a goofball:

Clip art can undermine your entire credibility and legitimacy of message, because it screams: “Don’t take what I have to say seriously.”

Example? A recent (non-classified) US Army presentation entitled, “Strategic Choices — Adapt to Win.” This one deck may actually break every single rule of good presentation design (bad fonts, colors, low resolution imagery, lack of balance, death by bullet points, little white space, nonsensical charts, and the list goes on and on…) Truly, I think someone could write a PhD dissertation on ineffective communication in this document, but for me the most disturbing part of it was the very serious subject matter at the heart of this that was being treated with cutesy cartoons and tons of clip art. 

The above is far from the worst slide, but I think it’s emblematic of the whole deck, with its cartoons, lightning bolts (?) and heavily beveled arrows. Does the graphic treatment match the importance and gravity of supporting and supplying our military? I’m not saying the design should be austere or solemn—just not comical.

And speaking of comical, here are a few more slides in all their comic sans glory. Download the whole deck here.