A Guide to Creating Beautiful Infographics
EDAHN SMALL is the Creative Director at Hypothesis. Contact Edahn at esmall@hypothesisgroup.com.
Infographics have become a buzzword in research and information design circles. It seems like everyone's building them to help summarize information, and online tools are making it easier for non-designers to create their own infographics.
But as making infographics gets easier, maintaining their quality gets harder. I see lots of graphics that mean well but ultimately don't do justice to the information and look amateur. Part of the problem is in design mechanics like typography, layout, and color. The other part of the problem is more intellectual (or some might even say emotional)--dumping too many data points into an infographics either out of habit, out of fear, or sometimes just out of laziness. As we've said in previous blog posts, it takes more work to simplify things that to make them complex.
The tips below are meant to be easy rules-of-thumb to design better infographics. They're purposefully simplified to make them easy to follow, with tips like:.
Use a Consistent Voice Throughout the Infographic
Don't Waste the Space You Have
Use Color to Draw Attention Purposefully
Each tip is accompanied by an illustrative infographic, because what better way to learn how to make great infographics that to look at great infographics! You can download a PDF version of the deck from here which has hyperlinks to all the individual infographics. If you're looking for even more information, check out my previous post on the Principles of Great Infographic Design.
In the end of the day, it takes talented designers and illustrators to make infographics really sizzle--infographics that you want to keep with you and reference over and over. That's when the real payoff happens. Contact us and let's discuss your next great infographic.