Illustration
Type and shape carry the argument. Illustration carries the feeling — and for a non-technical audience it is often the thing that makes a slide memorable.
Draw it as inline SVG, by hand, in the diagram’s own tokens. Never fetch an icon pack, never generate a raster image. Vectors stay sharp on a projector and recolour with the theme.
When to add one
- The diagram has a metaphor worth showing (scales for judgement, a stack for drafts).
- A column head or section needs an anchor for the eye.
- The audience is non-technical and the subject is abstract.
Skip it when the content is already dense, or when the only candidate is a generic lightbulb, gear, rocket or handshake. A cliché icon is worse than white space.
The style
Line art, one weight, open forms. Stroke 3px on a 1600px canvas, no fills, round caps and joins. Fills close a drawing off and make it read as clip art; open line work reads as drawn.
Geometry, not anatomy. Circles, straight runs, single-curve arcs. A pan on a balance is one arc. A head is one circle. If a shape needs a bezier with four control points, the motif is too complicated for this slide.
Two inks, maximum. Ink-muted for the supporting side, accent for the side carrying the argument. That contrast alone can do the emphasis work.
Size it to be seen. Roughly 280–320px wide on a 1600px canvas. Smaller and it reads as an icon — decoration, which the craft rules ban. Bigger and it competes with the content.
Simplify until it nearly breaks. Draw it, then delete every stroke that is not load-bearing. A first attempt with a motion arrow, a tray and a stack becomes a stack.
Motifs that draw cleanly
These are geometric enough to hand-author and legible at a glance:
| Meaning | Motif |
|---|---|
| Judgement, accountability | Balance scale — circle finial, straight beam, two arc pans |
| Drafts, documents | Fanned rectangles, three deep, with short interior rules |
| Time, sequence | Circle with two hands, or a track with tick marks |
| A person, a role | Circle head over a single shoulder arc |
| Constraint, boundary | Bracket or frame with something crossing it |
| Growth, layering | Stacked bars of increasing height |
Checks
- Does it survive being described in four words? If not, simplify.
- Does it still read at 25% size — the thumbnail test?
- Does it repeat something the label already says? If yes, it is decoration; cut it or change it to add meaning.
- One weight, two inks, no fills, nothing fetched.
Placement
Above a column head, beside a title, or as a single hero to the right of the content. Give it the same left edge as the text it belongs to — an illustration that floats free of the grid undoes the composition.