When creating presentations for a client meeting or a luncheon workshop leave the clip art and flying wingding transitions in the box. The best PowerPoint presentations are those that gently guide your content and visually stimulate the viewer – sorry, you will stimulate nobody with a Microsoft PowerPoint included template.

There is a world of help out there to make your PowerPoint presentations stunning, but like most things, you have to know where to look. Lately, I’ve looked no farther than Presentation Zen – a blog by Garr Reynolds. As the name implies, (and his very nice blog design supports) Garr’s presentation mantra is simplify. Just reading the occasional post on this blog will help you create more effective presentations. Dive into the wealth of resources he presents and you are on your way to creating very professional slide decks.

Today he unveiled a very useful collection of web sites that offer stock photo images from free to pricey.