Infographics: Creating Infographics

1. Pick a topic
2. Gather data
3. Analyze data
4. Decide what you want to say / what point you want to make
5. Determine who your audience is
6. Plan infographic (make a wireframe/mockup)
7. Make infographic
8. Cite data sources

Lots of different types of data work well as part of an infographic. Many use a few different data sources. Here are some of the most common types of infographics, and what kind of information they present:

• Compare and Contrast
• Draw attention
• Label parts
• Flow chart / Decision making 
• Sequence of Steps
• Spatial and Geographic relationships
• Networks and connections between things
• Categorizing data
• Mind map
• List of barely-related facts
• Survey results
• Timeline
• Anecdotes

Source: http://ivancash.com/Infographic-of-Infographics

Guiding Principles

• Make it relevant
• Make it interesting
• Make it understandable
• Make it simple
• Make it accurate
• Consider design restraints (size, shape, color, etc.)

There are many online tools that make it easy to match your data and theme with a template. Tools include:

• Easel.ly

• Piktochart

• Venngage

• Infogr.am

PowerPoint is a good choice for beginners because most people know the basics of the program already.  It includes the some basic shape, and quite a bit of clip art.  But you'll probably want to edit most of your images in another program and then import then to PPT.

Adobe InDesign is well-suited for laying out your final infographic, but chances are you'll find, create, and or edit your images elsewhere before bringing them into InDesign.

Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop are great for creating or editing graphics you want to include in your final infographic, but you can also use either one to create your infographic from start to finish.