Today, information graphics, or infographics, have become an essential element to any type of visual communication. With the rise of online social sharing, these elements have even taken on a viral life of their own. According to Google, infographics has been a trending search term for the past two years. There have also been more and more websites solely dedicated to showcasing the best of the best, like Information Aesthetics and Daily Infographic.
Infographics today
Transit maps, pie charts, the 5-day forecast, stock charts, political polls. Do you realize that you are surrounded by infographics every day? While infographics are still found in your typical places like annual reports and PowerPoint™ presentations, there has been a transition from documenting only practical data to reinterpreting, well, anything.
This example displays a timeline of toys,
by Cabedge
while the next works as a barometer for the wind and marine business.
Virtually, the topic matters
Infographics are “liked,” “tweeted” and “dugg” daily. As long as it’s interesting, of course. “Friends” are sharing graphs comparing Star Wars to international slavery. After all, the social world is all about highlighting your interests, whether fun and quirky or serious and factual. And with so much information coming through the web, a graphic visual is the best tool for short attention spans. Having an infographic that online users find engaging and worth sharing can make for a lot of exposure! With the recent college bowl games, this infographic was very sharable in the virtual world.
by H&R Block
It’s got to look good
As they always have, infographics communicate practical data quickly through graphic interpretation, but they’ve come a long way from simple pie charts and flat diagrams. Designers are breathing new life into these static visuals, even making them three-dimensional as you can see here:
No matter how complex the data, if it’s well designed it will be well received. So while some infographics are just single graphs, others include a plethora of charts, diagrams and statistics all in one. Although you would think adding too many elements would complicate the data, the integration of colors, illustrations and photography make them engaging. Just take a look at these examples:
by med ness
by Studio Muti
How we’ve used them
We love infographics here at Kleidon. Not only have we developed them for our clients, but we’ve even designed one for ourselves called The Digital World Map, which breaks down online marketing avenues. If some of the examples above seemed too complex for you, the visuals we created below will show you how infographics can be both simple and intriguing.
Making it work for you
With infographics, the possibilities are endless and their usefulness is invaluable. The bonus is that you get to be trendy, too. So if you’re thinking about utilizing infographics in your communication materials, don’t forget to check in with us for help.
