You know the poster.

A bald eagle glides across a bruised blue sky, wings outstretched above the shadow of a pine forest. Beneath it, in silver capital letters, is a single instruction:

DARE TO SOAR

There is a quotation underneath, in writing too small to read from any useful distance, about attitude and altitude. The whole thing is surrounded by a heavy black frame.

You may have seen it in the corridor of a conference centre. Or on the wall of a manager’s office. Or in a meeting room where somebody once made an entire team spend an afternoon identifying their core values on Post-it notes.

At some point, these posters escaped from their frames and found their way into our slide decks.

No offence to Eagly, who is clearly an exception, but the bald eagle has done enough work in motivational imagery.

We are usually subtler now.

Balance becomes a serene stack of stones beside still water, rather than the constant wobble of keeping several important things from falling apart.

Leadership becomes someone standing heroically on higher ground, reaching down to pull another person upwards.

Mentorship becomes the same ascent, softened by a warmer sunset.

Resilience will inevitably become either a tree in a storm or a lone person on a mountain.

It is the law.

Somewhere in the world, there is a stock photograph of a cairn waiting to be placed beneath the word BALANCE.

You do not have to be the person who does it.

💡 ONE IDEA WELL

A section slide does not have to teach the whole lesson.

Sometimes it is simply a breath.

A signpost.

A moment for the audience to understand that one part of the talk has ended and another is about to begin.

It might create a mood: a busy waiting room before you talk about pressure; a lonely hospital corridor before you talk about isolation; an overflowing toy box before you talk about chaos.

But simple does not have to mean thoughtless.

The problem with visual clichés is not merely that we have seen them before. It is that they take ideas that are complex, personal and sometimes uncomfortable, and turn them into neat symbols.

Balance is rarely still. It is not the blissful calm of five pebbles perfectly stacked beside a lake. It is the wobble. It is the dropped ball. It is a child trying to carry three melting ice creams without dropping any onto the pavement.

Leadership is not always being the person on the mountaintop, reaching down to lift everybody else towards your level. Sometimes it is staying low. Listening. Standing beside someone when they are frightened. Making the people around you feel steadier.

Mentorship is not rescue, hierarchy or ascent. It might have been a conversation. A challenge. A cup of tea. A sentence that somebody said to you ten years ago that still shapes the way you work today.

This is why the first image that comes up when you search for an abstract noun is so often the wrong one.

It illustrates the label.

It does not reveal what you mean.

Your audience already knows that a stack of stones is supposed to mean balance. The more useful question is what balance means in your talk.

Because the image does not need to announce the subject.

It needs to open the door.

🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGE

Imagine a transition slide with a single word on it:

TEAMWORK

Behind it is a photograph of three wolves standing shoulder to shoulder in the snow.

The audience understands it immediately.

That is also the problem.

Nothing is being discovered. Nothing is being added. You are saying teamwork. They are reading teamwork. The wolves are repeating teamwork in the visual language of a motivational poster someone once bought in bulk for a training department.

That is not always dual coding.

Sometimes it is just a very large flashcard.

Now imagine the same moment in the talk with a different image: a real team in a real moment. Someone holding a child still while another clinician examines an ear. Two colleagues making space for a nervous parent. A group of people doing something small, practical and coordinated.

You may not need the word TEAMWORK at all.

The image holds the idea. The speaker gives it meaning.

Because teamwork is not a wolf pack in the snow.

It is communication. Timing. Trust. Quiet competence. The feeling that other people are carrying part of the load with you.

A transition slide can be simple.

But simple should not mean generic.

The best image does not merely decorate the word.

It changes how the audience understands it.

🎨 TRY THIS

The next time you need an image for a transition slide, do not begin by typing the heading into the search bar.

Searching for teamwork will give you wolves.

Searching for resilience will give you weather-beaten trees.

Searching for innovation will almost certainly give you either a light bulb or some hands hovering around a collection of hexagons.

Instead, finish this sentence:

Perhaps you mean the moment when several people move together without needing to be asked.

Perhaps you mean somebody quietly noticing what needs doing and doing it.

Perhaps you mean the relief of realising you are no longer carrying something alone.

Now search for that.

Look for actions, moments and relationships rather than abstract nouns.

For teamwork, it might be a group of children trying to move an enormous cardboard box, a family wrestling a flat-pack wardrobe into place, or four people attempting to carry a sofa around a corner without losing either the sofa or their friendship.

For balance, it might be three melting ice creams.

For mentorship, it might be the actual person.

Once you know what you are looking for, try:

• Canva — a huge built-in image library, especially convenient when you are already designing your slides there.
• Unsplash — beautiful, high-quality photography.
• Pexels — another strong source of free photography and video.
• Pixabay — useful for both photographs and illustrations.
• Gratisography — worth a look when you want something stranger, funnier or less polished.

But a better image library does not automatically produce a better image.

You can find a pile of perfectly stacked stones on Unsplash, too.

The important choice happens before the search.

And while you are there, ask one more question:

If you are saying teamwork, and the image is already helping the audience feel what teamwork means in your talk, you may not need TEAMWORK written across the screen in a font large enough to be spotted from the International Space Station.

Let the image hold the idea.

Then use your words to bring it to life

❓ ASK YOURSELF THIS

Look at the next transition slide in your deck.

If the word disappeared, would the image still say something meaningful?

Or is it simply the first visual cliché that came to mind?

A section slide is a breather, not a billboard. It does not need to explain everything. But it should feel chosen.

Search for the lived experience, not the abstract noun.

And if your slide begins to look as though it should arrive in a black frame with an inspirational quotation underneath, step away from the eagle.​
​
Speak soon,

Andy

P.S. If you are building a presentation and want more practical ways to make your slides clearer, you can download my free Ready Set Go guide, Say Less, Mean More, here.