How to Create an Effective Infographic

How to Create an Effective Infographic

In the age of information overload, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get ideas conveyed to world audiences as users become more sophisticated, rebellious and impatient. So, how to present information in an intriguing and brief way (in other words, a way that audiences want to receive information) has become the holy grail that every marketer tries to find.

After all, isn’t fulfilling people’s needs the key of winning the marketing game?

Creating An Infographic | Blueprint

That is one of the reasons why infographics have been recognized and utilized more than ever. Because an effective infographic should be eye catching, help the audience to grasp the key points just in a snap, and establish concepts by making powerful comparisons and leave an impression.

How to Create an Effective Infographic

1. Identify the Purpose of Your Infographic.

The earlier phase of creating an infographic is like writing a paper. When you start working on an infographic for your client, the first thing you’ll ask yourself is: what is the purpose of this infographic? The client wants to achieve a certain goal with this infographic and your job is to make sure your infographic will serve that goal.

Is it to inform? Is it to persuade? Is it to reveal some unnoticed facts? Is it to establish a certain need in the market that hasn’t been fulfilled yet? Or is it to introduce a new type of product?

Figuring your purpose out carries you a long way in the infographic-making process.

2. Gather and Organize Your Data

After bearing a clear purpose in mind, the next thing is to find the relative data. The progress of research requires a lot of patience. But it is necessary and can be fun. The more data you gather and read through, the more perspectives you can find to tell the story. It is where all the sparks start to light up and you will be able to see the larger picture and understand the project better.

Place yourself in your audience’s shoes, visualize what kind of questions they may have regards the topic you choose and devise a plan to answer them in a way that your audience will accept your point of view. Asking the right questions leads you to the right answers to an effective infographic.

3. Find The Story You Want To Tell

With a clear goal and all the materials in your hand, you want to tell a fascinating story. The angles of telling a story vary in different projects. The key remains, however, in making comparisons. Human beings’ brains learn the unknowns by building upon the knowns and the connection between them is made by comparison.

No matter it is “past vs. future”, “male vs. female”, “young vs. old” or “western vs. eastern”, etc, your goal is to offer the audiences a group they belong to and how they can relate the new information with something they are familiar with.

4. Create A Hierarchy

In order to draw your audience’s attention at the first place, you need some wow factors. The wow factor in an infographic is a piece of shocking data that breaks people’s assumptions. Find that piece of data, and try to build a logical chain around it that leads to your conclusions aka your goal. Once the hidden connections are identified, the picture of the final product starts to emerge.

5. Choose the right style and be creative.

Once the outline of an infographic is set, it is time for the designer to think about its style. It is for printing or for web? What is the scale? How can I make the preset color pallet from the client work? Whom is the infographic speaking to? The knowledge of of the target audience’s demographic is essential in the whole process. Designing an infographic with all the restrictions is like dancing with chains. But as a designer, there is never complete freedom and a challenge is always appreciated.

In a nutshell, an effective infographic is the product of vast research, in-depth analysis and appealing design. It is the fruit of expertise and experience. But by all means don’t be intimidated.

Once again, an infographic can be a game-changer in the marketing industry. By following the steps listed above, you will find yourself staying on the right track of making effective infographics.

By: Erin Li