You know that Haiku Deck puts millions of beautiful, free Creative Commons licensed images at your fingertips to grab your audience’s attention and bring your words to life. Our built-in keyword search makes the searching part easy, but selecting the perfect one can take a little creativity (and sometimes patience, grasshopper). If you need a little presentation inspiration, these power tips will help you pick images like a pro.

Keyword Search Tips

  1. Don’t limit yourself to literal: There’s no need to get stuck on a specific search word or phrase—try zooming out and exploring different angles in to your topic. For example, if you’re making a “Summer Road Trip” Haiku Deck, try evocative phrases like “highway” or “scenic route” if  “summer vacation” or “road trip” isn’t doing the trick.
  2. Go abstract: Some text is just tough to illustrate visually. Abstract images are a great way to add some aesthetic mojo to your slide without distracting your audience from its message. Try searching for “light” and “pattern,” for example.

    Presentation Inspiration: Using abstract images in a Haiku Deck

    Haiku Deck for iPad: Using abstract images

  3. Explore emotional triggers: Sometimes you’re trying to illustrate a feeling, like fear, joy, or unbearable itchiness. Instead of searching for the emotions themselves, try thinking of what would invoke that feeling, whether it’s extreme heights, tasty pastries, or wool sweaters.

Dealing with Dead Ends

If you hit a dead end with your image searching, try a different tack and keep exploring! When we’re creative with our keywords, and willing to go beyond the first few image results, we often get inspired by a new, unexpected creative direction. (We’ve also been known to get “inspired” by afternoon cappuccinos when we’re supposed to be finishing the press kit for our upcoming new version, but that’s a different story.) Here’s a Haiku Deck we created for Nolan Haims that was particularly fun to find images for:

2 Is the New 3 – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires;

More Presentation Inspiration

For more creative image ideas and presentation inspiration, be sure to browse our Featured Gallery and Popular Gallery. (If you’re using Haiku Deck for iPad, you can also do this right from the app.) If you have a question about image searching or a tip of your own, let us know! And if you have a Haiku Deck with inspired imagery, send a link to gallery@haikudeck.com (or tweet it using the hashtag #hdgallery).