an image that is created, fairly free of
usage restrictions, in order to be incorporated into other documents, accompany text, as an object in a diagram, in combination with other clip art
Clip art is bland, bland, bland...by design! I hesitate to even call it art. The concepts that clip art tries to convey are usually bureaucratic in nature anyway, so little is lost. The point of clip art is to spice up an otherwise (more) boring document. Nobody wants to see only lines and letters in their PowerPoint slides, but not everyone is Norman Rockwell, so they need a set of images to choose from. To this end, clip art tries to be as standard as possible, embodying ideas that are universal across organizations, castes, cultures and companies.
Collections of clip art come along with most word processors and presentation packages. These collections are usually broken down into logical subgroups like: sports, teamwork (yay!), verdant pastures and tropical sunsets, arrows, 3D arrows (nicely shaded), curvy arrows, flowery arrows, angry arrows, profitable arrows, office supplies, holiday banners and sacramentals...you get the idea. These categories allow the clip artee to quickly find an appropriate image to push their project status update into flavor country.
This writeup probably got a little too lofty.
worst job ever: clip artist