“A successfully informative graphic relies upon a strong, clear structure. The underlying structure determines the organisation of the data, controls the flow of the narrative and ensures the integrity of the data remains intact.”
On these pages, we recommend the essential components and best practices for creating visually compelling and effective infographics. We guide you through how to arrange information, choose the right layout, and engage your audience with a well-structured design.
Defining a clear message
When creating an infographic, one of the most important aspects to consider is the clarity of your message. A clear and concise message ensures that your audience understands the information you're presenting and can easily grasp the main idea. To achieve this, it's crucial to carefully define your message and structure your infographic around it. Here are some points to consider when defining a clear message for your infographic:
Identify the main objective
Start by clearly defining the primary objective of your infographic. What do you want your audience to take away from it? Are you trying to educate, persuade, or entertain? Understanding your objective will help you focus your message and shape the overall structure of your infographic.
Know your target audience
Consider who your target audience is and what they already know or understand about the topic. Tailor your message to their level of knowledge and use language and visuals that resonate with them. Understanding your audience will help you craft a message that is relevant and engaging to them.
Keep it simple and focused
Infographics are meant to present information in a visually appealing and easily digestible manner. Avoid overwhelming your audience with too much information or complex ideas. Instead, focus on a single main message or key takeaway. Keep your content concise and prioritize clarity over excessive detail.
Organising content for clarity
Your guiding mantra when creating an infographic should be clarity. The whole purpose of the piece is to communicate potentially complex information clearly, succinctly and visually. Clarity can be achieved as follows:
Determine the key message:
Start by identifying the main message or key takeaway you want to convey through your infographic. This will serve as the central focus around which you will structure the content.
Create a logical flow:
Organize your content in a logical and sequential manner. Arrange the information in a way that naturally progresses from one point to another, following a clear and coherent flow. Consider using a top-down or left-to-right reading pattern, depending on your audience's reading habits. See the Storytelling box on this page for more on this.
Use sections and headings:
Divide your infographic into sections or blocks that address specific subtopics or related concepts. Use clear and concise headings to introduce each section and guide the audience through the content. Headings make it easier for viewers to scan and locate the information they are interested in.
Group related elements:
Group related elements such as text, visuals, and data together to reinforce their connection. Use shapes, lines, or color backgrounds to visually group related information. This grouping helps the audience understand the relationships between different elements and aids in comprehension.
Incorporate clear labels and captions:
Provide clear labels or captions for visuals and data points to provide context and aid understanding. Labeling helps the audience make connections between the content and reinforces the message you are conveying.
Keep it concise:
Be concise and avoid overwhelming the audience with excessive information. Focus on conveying the most relevant and essential points. Use short sentences, bullet points, or key phrases to communicate information succinctly.
Remember
The viewer has limited interest - if your infographic has too much text or takes too long to communicate its key points, they will give up.
The viewer has limited cognitive load - if there is too much information coming at once or it is communicated in too complex a format, they will not understand.
Storytelling
Your viewer needs to be able to follow the narrative of your infographic. If you just have many different sections with no clear relationships between them, and no obvious read-order, then they are unlikely to stay engaged and connect with your information.
Like every story, your infographic needs a clear beginning (intro), middle (information) and end (conclusion).
Some infographics will have a natural sequential story to tell. With these it is normal to either work from top to bottom or from left to right depending on the shape of your overall piece. This could be implicit in the design or you could make a journey, roadmap or timeline style graphic (see some examples on the next page).
A wide infographic with elements of equal or similar sizes can have an implicit read order with the narrative running from left to right. If your infographic was long and thin then the same effect works from top to bottom.
If the elements are not uniform or there maybe some confusion as to the read order, a journey or roadmap with a line or shape running between the elements can help your reader navigate your story.
You can also combine the two, with some elements following an implicit left to right (or top to bottom) order and others needing lines or shapes to connect them in the order you want the reader to navigate through them.
With others, there may not be a natural story, but you still need to help your reader navigate a sensible route through the elements of your graphic. Make sure that the parts that do relate to each other are physically connected (in shapes, boxes etc) and then use lines (these could be solid, dashed or dotted) or shapes (like arrows) to join them to other elements. It is fine to have one or two elements remaining stand-alone (this can give them prominence) but you don't want everything to be independent of each other.
This infographic is made up of several separate elements but the reader is guided through with the lines and arrows.
