Is Iconography really just Clip Art?

The feedback I received on a design was to “remove the clip art.” I was perplexed; there wasn’t any clip art on the page. As a designer, I don’t believe I have utilized clip art since 1998 when it came on CD-ROMs. I am pretty sure the younger members of my team wouldn’t be able to tell me what Clip Art is (or a CD-ROM, for that matter).

Following up, I learned that the stakeholder was saying to cut the iconography. When asked for clarity, the rationale was that we shouldn’t use clip art. Now, I was in a logic loop. I needed to address:

Is Iconography really just Clip Art?

My team's unhidden offense to that feedback told me the Designers didn’t think so. So what were the Designers seeing that the business stakeholders didn’t see? I decided to dig into the problem a little deeper.

The similarities between Iconography and Clip Art

I explored how each of these visual concepts is defined and highlighted where in a Venn Diagram, they would have overlap.

• Iconography and clip art are both collections of pre-made digital images.