Clipart vs. Photos in Presentations

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joseph A. Zupko
  • Start date Start date
J

Joseph A. Zupko

In Presentation Magazine they use a lot of Photos in the remake section. Is
there anything wrong with using clipart?
 
It's all a matter of taste and the target audience. For me, clipart tends
to be too cartoony and unprofessional for corporate audiences. If you're
designing for kids, it is quite appropriate.
 
Good question, Joseph -- chances are you could get a different answer for
each member of this newsgroup.

Photos are more literal, and there are times when there is no substitute for
the real thing. A photo of a forest as the backdrop for a presentation to
the U.S. Dept. of Forestry could be infinitely better than using a few pine
trees that you might find at MS's online gallery.

But sometimes, being literal is not appropriate -- being symbolic might be
better. I have seen the slide that Glen refers to -- the one with the
cogs -- and with it, he can do something that he could never do with a
photograph of a bunch of cogs:

He can animate them.

He can also take one or two, set them to a color that is close to the
background, tuck them into the corner, and create a nice accent for his
page. That kind of treatment is ideal for clipart use. As always...it all
depends upon your objective...
 
In Presentation Magazine they use a lot of Photos in the remake section.
Is
there anything wrong with using clipart?


I have two problems with clipart. First, people tend to use them just to
fill space. Then, you see the same clips, over, and over.

I've used some clipart, but it came from harder-to-get places, and I only
use relevent stuff. For our educational presentations used in schools, I
have forbidden the use of clipart, especially if it comes from a public
source. For 'internal' sales and product presentations, the presenter's
personality is the key, but if one of our folks uses those goofy little
people from the MS collection, they're going to hear from me. :-)

The other nice thing about clipart is that its small. The good stuff is
vector art.

John O
 
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