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Designing an Infographic: Step Four: Laying Out the Elements of Your Infographic

Step Four: Laying Out the Elements of Your Infographic

•9 (+1) Essential Elements of the Perfect Infographic.

–The Fonts: Should mirror your brand and be distinct, readable, and be fit your theme.

–The  Title and Headings: Should be succinct and detailed -- readers need to know what they're viewing immediately.

–The Introduction: guides the readers through the infographic and gives a little more background.

–The Body Copy: Should be short but descriptive, only using the most critical data, can be divided into a bulleted list or subheadings.

–The Information and Data: Must be factual, evidence-tested, essential to the infographic and can be made into graphs, charts and diagrams

–The Colors: Echo your brand, and communicate the message you're sharing in your infographic.

–The Visual Aids: Create your content to be interesting, worthwhile, unforgettable, and simple to interpret, also break your body of text in logical intervals to improve your infographic.

–The Conclusion:Might list main results, references, suggestions for follow-ups, calls to action, and more.

–The Layout: Should mirror the infographic's data and match your audience's viewing inclinations.

–The +1 Element--The Audience: "You can't see The Audience on an infographic -- yet it's the most essential element to make your infographic successful!" (Nguyen)

 

•Create a natural flow of information.
–Tell the reader what they will gain from your infographic by turning the burning problem into your header or title.
–Follow up with charts or information that addresses the supporting questions from your question pyramid.
–Drive it home with charts or information that addresses the probing questions from your question pyramid.
 

•Use a grid layout to add structure and balance. (Nediger)

Nediger, Midori. "How to Make an Infographic in 5 Easy Steps -- Fast (2023 Guide)." Venngage, 10 Mar. 2023, https://venngage.com/blog/.

Nguyen, Chau. "Infographic Elements: How to Piece Together the Perfect Infographic." Venngage, 07 Nov. 2022, https://venngage.com/blog/.

The 9 +1 Essential Elements of the Perfect Infographic

Layout Examples using a Grid Format

This shows examples of various layouts you could choose with different column widths, multiple rows, or multiple sections. The red lines on the image show the way the viewer would typically read your infographic. Venngage has an article, How to Choose an Infographic Layout, that will help you understand more about different layouts and what might work best with your data.

One Column Layout

Here we have a single column infographic layout with two examples of designs that could be made from a single column. The first is a vertical centered Timeline Infographic, and the second is a Process Infographic of a recipe.

Multi-Section Layout

This is an example of a multi-section layout. The first infographic showing the Easiest Indoor Plants to Keep Alive is an Informational Infographic.  The second infographic about the Benefits + Tips for Working Remotely is a List Infographic that is well-designed. It uses numbers to aid readers in knowing which order to read information in and makes good use of icons.