Nare Navasardyan
If you’re looking for a way to visually showcase a lot of data, tell a complex story, or flex your creative muscles, then you might want to consider creating an infographic.
We live in an age of constant information gathering, processing, and sharing. There are around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created each day and they are growing at an overwhelming rate as our world becomes more and more digitalized. Infographics help us grapple with this mind-blowing amount of information and represent it in a compelling way. They’re also just a great tool for content marketing.
In this article, we’ll explore the definition of an infographic, describe various use cases, and teach you how to make your own.
What is an Infographic?
First things first – exactly what is an infographic? An infographic is a multimedia graphic that helps you easily share information through a visually stimulating design. It is a way to visualize a concept or a compelling story via creative juxtapositions, graphs, diagrams, and illustrations.
Why are Infographics Important?
Research has estimated that around 65% of people are visual learners. These people process images about 60,000 times faster than text. This is why infographic design is now a popular means to convey detailed information.
A a powerful tool for disseminating information, infographics are widely used in science and engineering, medical research, visual communication platforms, and online learning to capture attention and aid in comprehension.
With so many visual learners, and so much data readily available, there are a ton of ways to use infographics. Scientists represent general statistical information and significant data via infographic design. Marketing strategists use infographics to increase audience engagement and build brand awareness. Educators think that infographics are a creative way to break down a complex, multifaceted topic while giving students an enhanced learning experience. Infographics are also used to raise public awareness, discuss the severity of an issue and what should be done to help.
What Are the Types of Infographics?
Infographics vary based on their purpose and the individual designer. However, there are few common types of infographics. If you’re considering designing an infographic, consider any of these design styles. The actual visual elements can vary, but they’ll all help you tell your story in an eye-catching way.
Pro tip: keep in mind the platforms that you’ll publish your content on when selecting which of these infographic examples will work best for you.
1. A data-centric infographic emphasizes multiple datasets and important statistics. This informational infographic is designed to make dense, intricate data easier to understand. Use this type of infographic to visualize survey results or represent data from multiple sources. This infographic design should focus on keeping the message clear and concise via a combination of text, charts (tree-bundles, vector illustration, diagrams, pie-charts, etc), and images.
2. Timelines are very popular infographics used to visualize the history of something or explain how a topic changes over time. A timeline infographic design creates a clear picture for the viewer of exactly what happened and when. While you can get creative with these, it’s best to stick to a visually chronological ordering. Showcase relevant events on the timeline by using lines, images, clipart, labels, curved text, contrasting fonts, and color gradients.
3. Comparison infographics are the best infographics to compare and contrast varying topics. Typically, comparison infographics are split down the middle vertically or horizontally, with one option on each side. This enables the viewer to visually see the difference between two or more things.
4. Hierarchical infographics organize information into different levels and display the interconnectedness of these levels. Don’t worry if this sounds complex – you’ve likely seen them before in the form of a pyramid chart or flowchart. One of the famous infographic examples is seen in the food pyramid.
5. Infographic resumes are designed to accompany traditional resumes and are very popular. Visual resumes are the best infographics to help you stand out from the crowd by displaying your experience, skills, and goals via your customized line graphs, word clouds, images, logos, social media icons, and more. Consider using a base like the below and filling in key resume data points for an eye-catching infographic resume that you can share on your digital portfolio.
6. Flowchart infographics are used to answer a specific question by displaying several options and revealing the right answer. They are also used to show how a topic splits off or grows. This type of infographic design is commonly used by educators in the classroom and in popular lifestyle magazines. Consider cropping photos and adding them into the flowchart to make this typically text-heavy infographic design more visually appealing.
7. List infographics are one of the most popular types of infographics due to their versatility. They enable you to skim content, while still clearly displaying the overall message. You can also play around with bright colors or a festive color palette to make each number in the list visually pop off of the page.
Pro tip: It doesn’t need to be numbered to be a list! Consider creating your own thematic stickers to use as icons instead of bullet points to connect your list to the larger design theme.
8. Process infographics show how to do something in simple numbered steps. These are the best infographics to use if you need to visualize a specific process spanning everything from DIY projects to how to clean up the chemistry lab. They’re visually straightforward for a specific reason. Most process infographics are used to teach or reinforce a new topic and follow a top-to-bottom or left-to-right flow.
9. Photographic infographics use images to visualize real-life concepts or tell a story in a memorable striking way. They can be illustration-based or photo-based. Consider these as a more data-heavy version of a text collage.
What Should an Infographic Include?
Now that you’ve selected the type of infographic you want to use, it’s time to consider the visual theme, style, and design elements that will help make the infographic unique. Your infographic design should include unifying graphic elements such as images, icons, and recurring shapes to make data more engaging to viewers. You should also consider a uniform color scheme to tie it all together.
The best infographics have a balance of visuals and text so pick them wisely. Your text should consist of carefully chosen words that emphasizes key ideas clearly and succinctly. The negative space, which is the space void of images or text, is as important as your choice of colors and fonts. Don’t be afraid to use negative space on your infographic; it helps your reader focus their attention on the key visuals.
Pro tip: If you’re just getting started with graphic design, here are our top 12 tips to upgrade your infographic design skills.
What’s the Story Behind An Infographic?
No matter how spectacular your infographic design is, it is the story behind it that matters most. The best infographics combine strong visual appeal with effective presentation of information, unveiling intricate stories lurking in the data. So, the accuracy, rigor, depth, and clarity of the data – where it comes from and what it represents – should be your primary concern when creating your content.
As Alberto Cairo, designer and visual journalism professor, famously said, “Information graphics should be aesthetically pleasing but many designers think about aesthetics before they think about structure, about the information itself, about the story the graphic should tell.”
Tips for Creating Effective Infographics
1) Ask yourself why
Go ahead – take out a pen and physically write down answers to the following questions: Why am I creating an infographic? What am I trying to accomplish with an infographic? Who is my target audience? What do I want the viewer to think, feel, and do after seeing it? On what platform will I share the infographic?
2) Look into your story
Define the so-called “burning point” at the core of your story which makes your content unique. This will likely turn in to the focal point of your infographic.Write a descriptive infographic title that ties your story together.
3) Search for the data
The cold hard data that speaks for itself and backs up your story. Remember that choosing which data to use is also a moral act. Consider your data source and only use data that comes from an unbiased third-party source. Don’t forget to cite your sources in the infographic to show the credibility of your story and build trust. This is commonly done in smaller font on the bottom or top of the infographic.
4) Visualize your data
Select one of the infographic types that best suits your story, data, target audience, and distribution platform. Will your story benefit from comparison, chronological analysis, or from numbered list? How can you capture and hold your audience’s attention? Are you into static, animated, or interactive infographics?
5) Style is key
Is your infographic elegant and descriptive; informative and analytical, or humorous and playful? This will come into play when designing your visual framework or selecting a template.
6) Create an infographic from scratch or choose a template
With so many infographic examples, the world is your oyster. You can use a template or create a design from scratch using charts (bubble, column, pyramid, bar charts, flowchart), shapes, pictograph, lists, tables, stickers, clip art, diagrams, lines, timelines, etc. Don’t forget to play with text styles, too.
7) Input your data
Utilize alignment, repetition, and consistency. Remember to give visual weight to the “burning point” or key takeaway of your story.
8) Make it shareable
Consider sizing dimensions for your infographic so it can easily be viewed and shared across the web.
Infographic Templates
Do you want to use a ready-made infographic template? There are so many amazing templates packed with creative design layouts, shapes, and professional graphics. You can also check out Picsart’s templates and easily customize them by adding your data. We’ll show you how to make a unique infographic from a template in the web-based tutorial below.
How Do You Create an Infographic?
With the help of a rich array of graphic design tools found in creative platforms, there is virtually no limit to what you can do with data visualization. You can apply your favorite fonts, text styles, and create an eye-catching color palette from an image.
Here’s how to create an infographic in Picsart. We’ll show a template-based tutorial for the web editor and a custom tutorial for the app to show how you can design it both ways.
If designing on web:
1) Open the Picsart web editor and start a new project.
2) Select Templates in the left panel toolbar and search for infographic. Select your favorite one. Don’t worry – you can customize it for your own design needs by clicking on various layers in the right toolbar.
3) Remove, reposition, resize, or adjust the layers that you don’t need. You can also add additional designs using the Text, Stickers, and Elements tools on the right panel. Remember that you can change the size, font, color, and more of the text by clicking on the layer.
4) When you’re done with your design, click on Export to download and save your infographic design. Here you can also name the file, change the file format, and upscale if needed for printing.
If designing on the mobile app:
1) Open the Picsart app and tap on the plus sign (+) to start a new project. Scroll down to Color Backgrounds to select a blank canvas color.
2) Set your infographic size by picking any one of the common preset sizes in the bottom toolbar or inputting a custom dimension. Press Apply to save your new canvas size.
3) Use the tools in the Editor toolbar to add Shapes, Text, and Stickers to get a completed infographic look.
4) When done, tap Next then Save and Share your final design.
Whether you choose a ready-made template or create your own, Picsart offers simple, easy to use tools to transform your data into a visually stimulating, cohesive design enabling you to deliver information in enthralling ways. Consider visualizing percentages with creative pie charts and transforming numerical data into a bar graph. Use icons and custom stickers instead of bullet points, break up your story into sections with backgrounds, and play with shapes and color treatments. The possibilities are truly endless!
Create at the Speed of Culture
Picsart is a full ecosystem of free-to-use content, powerful tools, and creator inspiration. With a billion downloads and more than 150 million monthly active creators, Picsart is the world’s largest creative platform. Picsart has collaborated with major artists and brands like BLACKPINK, Taylor Swift, the Jonas Brothers, Lizzo, Ariana Grande, Jennifer Lopez, One Direction, Sanrio: Hello Kitty, Warner Bros. Entertainment, iHeartMedia, Condé Nast, and more. Download the app or start editing on web today to enhance your photos and videos with thousands of quick and easy editing tools, trendy filters, fun stickers, and brilliant backgrounds. Unleash your creativity and upgrade to Gold for premium perks!
