Cool Infographics: Effective Communication with Data Visualization and Design

Design matters. But design is not about decoration or about ornamentation. Design is about making communication as easy and clear for the viewer as possible.

—GARR REYNOLDS, PRESENTATION ZEN

Designing Infographics

If you have any interest in designing data visualizations and infographics, this chapter is for you. You might be ready to design one on your own, or you might work with a designer to put an infographic together. Either way, these design tips can help you create a cool infographic and avoid many of the common mistakes designers make.

Infographics are harder to design than you might think. There are thousands of “bad” infographic designs on the Internet because the designer ignored one, or many, of these rules. In a pattern similar to the millions of videos uploaded to YouTube, most of the infographics online are actually poor designs and get little traffic. The good designs rise to the top and are the designs that most often go viral in social networks.

This chapter doesn't point out and show any specific examples of bad designs that didn't follow these rules. Because I may have broken some of these rules in the past, I'm not here to criticize others, but to offer help to anyone that wants to get better at designing infographics. You can find thousands of examples of infographics ...