It’s never been easier to create and distribute marketing content to a large audience, and as a result, there is no shortage of websites, social media pages, blogs and e-mails to read. If you’re looking to help your brand connect and communicate with your potential customers or audience, you’ve got to make sure your content is useful and informative, and your message needs to stand out from everything else competing for the Internet user’s attention. One of the best ways to ensure your content is memorable and shareable is to present it in a visually appealing and easy-to-digest Infographic.
When preparing to create an Infographic, the first step is to gather and organize the data you want to present. If you’re creating an Infographic to show the benefits of riding a bicycle, for example, you’ll want to collect information about its physical and emotional health benefits, as well as its positive impact on your finances, community and the environment.
Next, you’ll want to read all this information carefully and think about what kind of story you can tell with it. Ask yourself if this story has the power to entertain and enlighten, and look for any holes that might need to be filled in order to make it more effective. Do you need to talk about bicycle safety, too? Have you glossed over the cost of bicycle accessories or maintenance? Focusing on telling a complete and well-structured story will allow you to determine a hierarchal structure for the whole project.
To build that hierarchy, consider which facts are most important and interesting. Doing so will give you a better idea of how to organize the supporting information, and the shape and structure of the Infographic will become clearer. You will be able to decide if it should be laid out as a map, graph, pie chart, or something else entirely, and then the Infographic can be formatted accordingly.
After choosing your format, the next step in building an Infographic is to zero in on a visual approach. This entails choosing colors, fonts, numerical representations and other illustrations. Many designers focus on making their Infographics look beautiful and exciting, and others prefer to represent data in a more clear and straightforward fashion. These two methods, of course, can exist together, and some of the best Infographics surround charts and graphs with original, eye-catching illustrations. When selecting a visual approach, it is important to consider the subject, branding, medium and, not least of all, the information being portrayed.
Before calling it a day and distributing your Infographic for the whole world to see, it is very important to take a look at the final draft, refine it and test it out internally. Allow other people to provide feedback about what works and what doesn’t, and perhaps you’ll be able to make some tweaks to simplify the final message and presentation before it’s finally ready to go. See an example of one of our own memorable Infographics below.
