IXD104 Week 8: Designing Infographics

What is an Infographic?

A visual representation of information and data. These include elements of text, diagrams, images, and other tools that help elaborate the points you are trying to make. Infographics were created to help enhance the story/points you are trying to convey as this is a wonderful way to help educate others as it gives an easy understanding for everyone. Due to an infographic being an especially useful and appealing way to grab users’ attention, this is a fantastic way to spread awareness of the subject of matter and will help the audience become factually aware as well.

Due to its popularity, the use of infographics has now become a powerful way to communicate with businesses, school and government organizations are using these forms to spread valuable information.

What goes into a Good Infographic?

These are data stories that are effectively engaging with a target audience due to how concise and easy the information is to digest. The use of the white space and the organized layout of the data story is what helps us attract the user to the piece; getting the user to read and what to learn more about the information on the infographic.

Look into who your information is directed to as it should be clear with the information you use of who you want this information to reach. Picking a target audience will help you pick out the key points you want to include into you piece as you want to appeal around them and try and create something that is worth their time reading and will interest them even further; even provoking some people to act with what you are trying to educate.

Good headlines are key to this appeal as they hint to the target audience on the journey they will have when exploring your infographic. This is what will lure people to your design. Try information that is shocking, emotional, and imperative as you are making it personal to the reader or it can be something they relate to as well.

Remember when it comes to the overall design, your layout should be kept simple as you do not want to make your audience work harder than they need too. Doing this can be very off putting for some and will ultimately distract your audience and will disregard the information that you are trying to bring awareness to.

The History of infographics

Starting off with the oldest infographic’s called The Lasaux Paintings which are estimated to be about 17,300 years old. These are paintings that depict everyday life back in this period as there was paintings of birth, death, and significant celebrations to people of that time. Showed us a way of how Cavemen communicated visual with such important life events.

Egyptian Hieroglyphs

These where symbols used in a way of communicating for the Egyptians and again similar like the Cavemen, they too where a way of depicting everyday life as it showed subjects like life, their work and religion. This unique way of communicating dates back to 3000 BC which is intriguing to see such an accept form of communication which is this old.

William Playfair


Being a Scottish engineer and a political economist, Willaim Playfair was known for his work of creating the area and pie chart. His creation of a famous diagram is used heavily in infographics today so, it is interesting to see how his work has helped form how we communicate on an infographic today.

Edmond Halley


Edmond Halley was the man that founded the Halley’s comet as his creation of the maps that he used became a new form of graph and became a way that is used in infographics. He used contour lines on maps to help describe different conditions.

Alfred Leete


Creating one of the most noticeable designs in the first world war, Alfred Leete is a British graphic design artist that was famous for his use of visual and data elements. Throughout his career, Leete would design many posters, however, his famous wartime propaganda in London, ‘Your country needs you!’ This infographic would become incredibly famous with the poster being taught in school today and shown how much impact that poster made on an entire society.

Where to start for your Infographic?

1. Process your information – Check and gather the information you want to use and see if it fits with the subject you are trying to educate about.
2. Check your source – Make sure that the facts are correct as an infographic is created on facts not opinions
3. Create a wireframe – Sketching out your ideas first will help you get a feel for what you are planning to do.
4. Have a story – Make your infographic flow like a story using information that will appeal to the reader.
5. Set a tone – Setting a tone can show the seriousness of the topic or the emotional side to the topic. Your tone should predict how people should feel and act.
6. Consider your typeface – Look into what typeface suits the subject you are talking about and what will help you convey the point you want to make.
7. Colour – Colour is an effective way to set the tone and will help you impact the emotional connection with the reader.
8. Control the white space – White space will help you keep your infographic simple and will help organize your work.
9. Take a break – Leave your work and then come back, gives you a new perspective on your work.
10. Proofread three times – Proofread what you have written to avoid errors or mistakes in your text.
11. Test- Show others around you to see if they can understand the point you are trying to make.
12. Make edits – Always look and see if you can improve as it could benefit your target audience and could have more appeal than it did the first time.

Next Task
Our task is to create an infographic based on the population statistics. This could be about health, death, politics or educational. Look into interesting subjects that you want to help spread awareness too. For my own infographic, I was thinking of into the abortion status of Northern Ireland as it is a truly relevant subject all over the world, but more needs educated with the possibilities of safe access to abortion for Northern Ireland.

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