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Designing an Infographic

What is an infographic?

An infographic is visual representation of data that is used to educate and inform. Infographics can be a good way to build brand awareness and increase inbound links, you can do this by promoting across social media websites.
Infographics can turn dense articles into scannable information by using visuals like graphs, charts, and illustrations.

Types of Infographics

There are multiple different types of infographics, designed to display information in the most meaningful way. The type of infographic you use depends on what information you need to give your readers.

There are seven common types of infographics:

  1. Map
    2. The first type of infographic is a map, used to compare data based on location. One example of a map infographic would be the cost of living in the united states. This could show the cost of living depending on state.
  2. Versus
    3. A versus infographic is used to compare and contrast two things, such as a tiger versus a lion.
  3. Timeline
    4. Timeline infographics can be used to tell a story chronologically or show how something has changed over time.
  4. List
    5. A list infographic can be used in a couple different ways, it can be used to support a claim or argument and it can also be used to give a list of information such as movie genres and sub-genres.
  5. Flowchart
    6. A flowchart infographic provides answers to a question based on readers choices, a flowchart starts with one question, the answer to which can be found after answering a series of other questions. An example of this would be, 'What to watch on Netflix?' the answer to this can be found by answering questions like 'Are you watching with children?' answering 'yes' or 'no' leads to a new question, continuing until you reach an answer to the main question. Flowchart infographics can be very useful and fun.
  6. Visual Article
    7. A visual article infographic can take a dense article and turn it into scannable information. By cutting down on text and adding visuals such as graphs, charts, and illustrations you can make a article more interesting and increase the sharing potential.
  7. Data Visualization
    8. Data visualization infographics communicate data through charts and graphs. These infographics make data driven arguments easier to understand and make facts and statistics more interesting and easier to absorb.

How to design an infographic?

So how do you start to design an infographic? Content first.
Before deciding what type of infographic to use you first need to look at your content and determine the best way to display your information. Do you have statistics to show, two subjects you want to compare? Content has to be determined first because that will determine the type of infographic you need.
Once you have your content and have determined the type of infographic you will be creating you can then design the information layout. The information layout is the order in which you display the information and the location of design elements.
Once you have a developed layout you can design and develop or gather your imagery.

Here are some key ideas to remember when designing an infographic.

Show, don't tell.

The point of an infographic is to display data visually, this doesn't always work for all the information you are sharing but when it does use it. Don't tell your readers something you can show them.

Don't use typography as a crutch.

Typography can make or break any design, but in the case of infographics typography shouldn't be used in place of a visual. Instead the typography should be used to enhance the visual.

Tell a story.

When laying out your information do it in a way that tells your viewer a story, let the information draw their attention throughout the infographic. Rather than putting all your visuals in one space and all of your text in one section try separating chunks of text with visuals, your viewers will be more likely to read the entirety of the infographic this way.

Have more ideas on how to make an infographic successful? Let me know in the comments!

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