Last week Canva made waves on social media with all of their bulletins about their new AI-powered design instruments. While these instruments look nice and I plan to make use of them, I believe it is nonetheless essential for college students to study some fundamental design ideas as a substitute of simply counting on no matter an algorithm spits out. To that finish, this is an excerpt from a evaluate that I wrote of Randy Krum’s guide, Cool Infographics revealed again in 2013.
1. Be correct. It appears apparent, however you’ll discover infographics are usually not correct. For instance, be certain that your pie charts add as much as 100%.
2. Tell one story rather well. An infographic that tries to do an excessive amount of finally ends up not telling a narrative in any respect.
3. The 5 second rule. Krum shares that a lot of the web page view length occasions are 5-10 seconds for infographics featured on his weblog. Create infographics that inform a narrative shortly.
4. Big fonts are usually not knowledge visualizations. Krum states, “displaying the quantity in a big font does not make it any simpler for the viewers to grasp.”
5. Minimize textual content. Along the strains of #4 above. This is one other tip that appears apparent, but we see text-heavy infographics everywhere in the internet.
6. Eliminate chart legends. If the viewer wants a legend, your infographic’s story won’t be as clear appropriately.
7. Pick an excellent subject. Some subjects are usually not as appropriate for infographic show as others.
Disclosure: I acquired a free press copy of the Cool Infographics guide.