Creating infographics: A journey

To preserve the reputation as a “good designer,” one needs to keep up with the latest trends in the world of design. It was at the beginning of the stepping stone to my career in design when I entered the niche of designing infographics. It was a 3-month streak and a 100-day challenge.

Like most things, you don’t know how things work until you ease yourself by gaining knowledge about its various aspects. Just like any amateur designer, I scrolled endlessly through Pinterest, Behance, to a point where it became a process. When I look at the difference between my first infographic and the ones I create now, I know that none of the time spent on those platforms was in vain.

Fun Fact: The first infographic that was created was around 32,000 years ago, depicting animals and resources in the area.

In the recent past, infographics were created typically in office software like Excel or Powerpoint. However, with the advent of advanced data visualization tools, it has now become easier for people to create visually stimulating infographics. If these tools advance further, who can predict the future of infographics?

Although, I’m still learning the art of creating the best infographic, here’s what I’ve learned in those months on designing a good infographic:

It needs a lot of research

The first step towards creating a good infographic is doing your research on the respective topic. Along with the collection of information related to the subject, having a clear idea about your target audience also helps a lot in deciding the layout of your work.

Lay it out like a story

After you’ve done your research, you must now decide the flow and the layout of the infographic. The flow should be similar to when you are reading a story. Adding a few bullet points is good, but make sure it’s still an engaging story and not just about those facts and statistics.

Select the right fonts and colors

The correct selection and combination of colors and fonts are essential as it sets the mood of the infographic. However, do not use too many colors or many different font faces; it might just take away the appeal of the design. Use a maximum of two different fonts and three different colors. It just gives uniformity to your work.

Food for thought: Are Egyptian hieroglyphics similar to infographics too?

Picking out the pretty graphics

Once you decide on the fonts and colors, then comes the most crucial step — selecting the right graphics. I would say that it is the most critical step; your whole infographic is dependent on the graphics. Infographics, as the name suggests, is conveying the information through graphics. But do not clutter your work with many graphics; try to keep it as minimal as possible. Always remember — a good design is less design.

Putting it together

Long process, right? Following the whole process of researching and collecting, it is now time to put it all together. Sometimes your outcome may not match your vision or idea for the infographic. However, drawing the layout beforehand or a piece of paper of whiteboard (whatever works for you) helps.

Playing the devil’s advocate

The last, but not the final step, is to introspect your work on your own and by others too. It is important to introspect even the finest details of your design as the smallest change or correction in your work can make a huge difference.

Lastly, the most important thing that I’ve learned over the course of the last three months is that IT MATTERS! Every curve, every dot, every line in your infographic matters! Every font, every color, every word matters! And, also persistence is the key to perfection.