Infographics can range from simple road signs to complex charts about the global economy. According to the authors of The Power of Visual Storytelling, there is no threshold at which something “becomes” an infographic. He supported the heavy use of graphical decoration to embellish information.įrom the 1990s onwards, the terms infographic and information graphics are used interchangeably. Holmes’ visualizations were the complete opposite of Tufte’s desire for simplicity. The spray-shaped images discovered at the Chauvet-Pont d’Arc Cave in France at around 37,000 BC were thought to depict the nearby volcanoes that erupted and expelled lava into the sky. Watch the video below to learn about the evolution of infographics. If you’ve wondered what the first infographic looked like, historians believe that cave images, rock art, and maps are the early versions of infographics. Sure, we might be slightly biased, but we made sure to stick with the facts, latest findings, and most reliable insights that we can find. Watch the 3-minute video below to discover why you should use infographics for persuasive business communication, better learning, and stronger memory recall. We found that people’s accuracy in describing the embellished charts was no worse than for simple charts and that their recall after a two-to-three week gap was significantly better for the embellished charts. Here’s an excerpt from the experiment’s conclusion: Also, there was zero difference in the participants’ accuracy in interpreting both charts’ data. Whether it’s for your social studies class or your rebranding efforts, adding visuals to texts (like infographics) has been shown to improve learning and memory recall.Ĭase in point - an experiment by the Department of Computer Science at the University of Saskatchewan showed that participants prefer embellished charts over plain (minimalist) charts in terms of aesthetics. You will learn more about the different ways to use infographics later in this guide. The possibilities with infographics are endless! You can make an infographic based on qualitative information like when you want to explain a process, define an idea, or highlight differences and similarities between two or more concepts. Do you need quantitative data to make infographics?

You can share infographics on Instagram, embed them on your website, or print them out as a brochure or poster. The beauty of infographics is that they’re versatile. Here’s an excellent example of an infographic that combined both data and visuals to make the content more striking, shareable, and easy to understand. So what do we learn from these definitions?Īuthors Ekaterina Walter and Jessica Gioglio said it best in their book The Power of Visual Storytelling - infographics, in a nutshell, bring together the best of data and visuals to craft a story. On the other hand, Oxford Learners’ Dictionary describes infographics as information or data that is shown in a chart, diagram, etc.

Merriam-Webster defines infographics as “a chart, diagram, or illustration (as in a book or magazine, or on a website) that uses graphic elements to present information in a visually striking way”. Infographic is a combination of the words “information” and “graphics”.

In this guide, you’ll find answers to these questions (and more!) as we dive deeper into infographic creation - from its history to design best practices to downloadable infographic templates that you can use right away. What kind of infographic format is ideal for the data that you want to highlight? Meanwhile, if you’re running a business or heading a marketing team, you’re curious about using infographics to share your brand story.Īre infographics expensive and time-consuming to create? Is it even worth pursuing? If you’re an educator or student, you’re probably wondering how infographics fit into the picture for your school curriculum or lesson plans. However, we’d like to share our thoughts and tips on infographic creation from the perspective of a team behind an infographic maker tool and as a provider of infographic design services since 2015. What is an infographic? We admit that there’s a lot written out there about this topic, it isn’t hard to find infographic examples out there.

Infographic examples