Design trends on the web spread quickly and it looks like infographic’s are the latest thing. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been assigned to design some of my own and I’ve found that data visualisation presents a few new challenges.
To spare any designers out there looking to make their own I’ve compiled some helpful tips that I’ve found around the web to get you started.
1: Collect data. As boring as it may be, the more raw data you can collect the better your infographic will turn out. I found that a good place to find some useful statistics is at www.ons.gov.uk.
2: Double check your sources. You don’t want to spend days making an amazing design only to have some smart ass come forward to tell you that actually the average Nigerian consumes 24.8kg of rice per year and not 24.3kg. Idiot!
3: Tell a story. Now that you’ve gathered your data and verified it as best you can it’s time to compile your most relevant facts. You’ve probably gathered tones of information but try to pick out the most interesting bits. Remember the whole point of an infograph is to make the information easy to absorb. One piece of information should lead comfortably to the next, rather than overloading the viewer with a screen scattered full of random percentages and pie charts. I always find it best at this point to sketch down a rough copy of the design.
4: Visuals. There’s dozens of different ways in which to display data. Feel free to go nuts with pie charts and graphs but try to make them look dynamic, the last thing you want is an infographic that looks like an excel spreadsheet. There are however more interesting ways to visualise data and this is where your creativity as a designer comes in. The internet is full of amazing examples of this so have a browse for some inspiration. Lately I find that Pinterest is a great source.
Here’s a few amazing examples I’ve found to inspire you:
The state of the internet
http://www.onlineschools.org/
The future of car sharing
http://futureofcarsharing.com/
Your slavery footprint
http://slaveryfootprint.org/
The coffee facts
http://designyoutrust.com/
Bold and justified
http://www.nfgraphics.com/
And for some further reading check out the book Information Is Beautiful – David McCandless for some awesome examples.
