These little bursts of colour, imagery and text are a great way of cutting through the noise and grabbing a viewer or reader’s attention – but what makes them work so well? To answer this question, we caught up with our design team recently to pick through their brains on all things infographics. It’s fair to say that our team have put together a few infographics in the past, so they were quick to point out the ‘do’s’ and ‘don’ts’; so read on and discover the five key elements to a good infographic.

1. Keep it Simple

The purpose of any good infographic is to convey fairly ‘dry’ information like statistics in a more engaging way by using type and simple graphics to make the data look more appealing. It’s a visual representation of the data that comes as a result of condensing down the key information and simplifying it to make it quick and easy to digest. Maybe it’s because we’re lazy, or maybe it’s easier to remember visual stimuli – but there’s no denying that infographics are a lot more engaging when they are to the point and carry a clear message.
It goes without saying that an infographic with lots of text isn’t going to be very visually appealing, but the same goes for overdoing iconography and varying text sizes and fonts as well. The purpose of an infographic is to cut through the surrounding noise – not to create its own chaotic noise.

2. Follow a Hierarchy

One way to ensure your infographic is easy to follow is to make sure it adheres to a logical hierarchy of information. The majority of time, your reader’s eye will be drawn to the title first – make sure your infographic has a strong title that doesn’t give away all the juicy information in one hit – you want them to read further, so give them enough to be enticing. After this, pinpoint the key message you want your reader to take away with them and make this large and central. Build around this central message, whether it is a large numerical statistic or a relevant icon and ensure that any supporting information you provide is balanced with a good amount of white space so it isn’t cluttered and hard to read.

3. Consider the Format

As we mentioned earlier – infographics work in a variety of places, and each deserves an approach that is appropriate to that format. For example, if the infographic is going to appear on a social media channel, your potential readers will be scrolling by quickly – so sharp, simple and visually stimulating graphics are going to help you cut through. It’s best in this instance to have small, limited information – it could just be one piece of data. Alternatively if it’s in a report, you have more room to be detailed and even include multiple infographics that focus on specific areas of interest. What should be consistent across all formats however is colour. While colour is invaluable at helping material stand out – especially on social media – it more important to use colours that are in line with what’s in the branding guidelines; and – if it’s a report – the document design. These colours can be used strategically to highlight key information.

4. Make sure there are more icons than text

Infographics rely heavily on icons to complement the overarching message and create a striking visual cut through. There should always aim to be more visual elements than textual elements, but these icons always need to have some connection to the message, otherwise it’s just confusing. If there are no icons to rely on, playing with different sizes of text and the alignment of text can create a more stimulating visual – for example, aligning data in such a way as to create the shape of something that is connected to the message of the infographic.

5. Don’t create an infographic for the purpose of design alone

Infographics have been around for a long time, but according to our design team, they have definitely become more and more popular in recent years. This has given rise to a problem existing on the flip side of creating an infographic from too much text: creating an infographic where there is no real need for one. Typically this occurs when the key information hasn’t been considered or there is a false belief that loading material full of infographics will make it more attractive. Infographics work best as key facts or similar ‘quick information’ bites that support the retention of information rather than dominating the page, screen or otherwise.

Follow these five key pieces of advice when it comes to creating infographics and you can’t fail. But if there is one piece of advice you should keep at the top of mind it’s this – keeping an infographic simple is paramount. Think about the main piece of information you want to convey and the key message you want people to remember – not the ten that you may be trying to cram in all at once.