diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 891d0d83c7..cdec7ec388 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -6,6 +6,21 @@
 
 Backstage is an open platform for building developer portals.
 
+The philosophy behind Backstage is simple: don't expose your engineers to the full complexity of all your infrastructure tooling and services -- hide it behind a consistent, centralized and delightful interface.
+
+![headline](headline.png)
+
+## Overview
+
+The Backstage platform consists of a number of different components:
+
+- **frontend** Main web application that users interact with. It's built up by a number of different _Plugins_. Plugins all use a common set of platform API's and reusable UI components. Each plugin is treated as a self-contained web app and can include almost any type of content.
+- **backend** GraphQL aggregation service that holds the model of your software ecosystem, including organisational information and what team owns what software. The backend also has a Plugin model for extending its graph.
+- **proxy** Terminates HTTPS and exposes any RESTful API to Plugins.
+- **identity** A backend service that holds your organisation's metadata.
+
+![overview](backstage_overview.png)
+
 ## Getting started
 
 ### Install Dependencies
diff --git a/backstage_overview.png b/backstage_overview.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..e31b867a3d
Binary files /dev/null and b/backstage_overview.png differ
diff --git a/headline.png b/headline.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..22ab0db2e0
Binary files /dev/null and b/headline.png differ