Infographics were really hot between 2009 and 2011 in the digital marketing world. And while they’ve become a little less popular over the past couple years, they seem to be enjoying a revival.
However, if you’re an entrepreneur considering diving into the infographic world, know that the key to success there is understanding how to design them according to reader preferences. Here are a few best practices worth applying in your infographic design efforts.
1. Start with an audience in mind.
One problem a lot of marketers have is trying to design an infographic with everyone in mind. As a result, the visual usually ends up reaching nobody in particular. This devalues the content and greatly hinders the results.
If you want to be successful, you must start the design process with a specific audience in mind. Whom are you trying to reach? What issues do these customers have? What solutions do they need? How can you connect issues and solutions with reputable data points? These are all important questions to consider when thinking about your audience and how the infographic will reach them.
2. Show, don’t tell.
One of the biggest rules of infographic design is to show, not tell. In other words, your visualizations should do as much of the talking as possible. If you need to use a bunch of words, something is wrong.
“If you’re having trouble adhering to this rule, try keeping all of your text on one layer of your AI file (excluding text inside charts and graphs),” designer Amy Balliet suggested in Smashing magazine. “Every once in a while, turn off the text layer and see whether the infographic still makes sense. If there isn’t any data viz, or if a bunch of pictures are missing context, then you are doing too much telling and not enough showing.”
3. Focus on flow.
“Flow” is an important concept in…