7 tips for designing killer infographics

Infographics are becoming more and more popular, and many businesses are pumping them out as a primary form of content.

What do you do, though, if you’re not a designer and you don’t have the funds to hire one, yet you still want to produce infographics?

Professional design tools can tricky to use if you don’t have experience with them, and they can be pricy.

Here’s help: These seven infographic design tips are easy to master and will make you look like you graduated from a top graphic design school:

1. Use complementary colors.

Lots of great tools can help you choose colors that complement each other, and you can then design your own palette. Paletton and Coolors are easy to use and offer excellent, contemporary combinations.

2. Less is more when it comes to fonts.

You should know the difference between serif and sans-serif fonts. With serif fonts such as Times New Roman, the letters have little feet. A serif font such as Arial ditches the feet.

Some combinations look great, but too many fonts can turn your infographic into an eyesore. Limit yourself to two fonts. Typography.com has great techniques for choosing and pairing fonts.

Many feel serif fonts are more believable than sans-serif fonts, so consider credibility and visual tone when deciding on typefaces.

3. Keep your layout simple.

Try not to overcrowd your infographic canvas with icons and text. Keep your information simple and concise. Use a header to describe the main idea, followed by one sentence to deliver details. Add a chart, pictogram or icons to elaborate on your ideas. This infographic layout cheat sheetis a great reference tool for figuring out placement of text and icons.

[RELATED: Discover how to harness the power of visual communication at our Visual Communications and Infographics Summit for Corporate Communicators.]

4. Make sure your infographic tells a story.

Many people will throw a bunch of facts and images together and say it’s an infographic. In reality, an infographic should tell a story and convey a distinct personality. In general, the infographics that rate highest are in some way cute or humorous.

In terms of topic, infographics covering food or travel score highest. Don’t be afraid to give your infographic a voice. This infographic is not only funny and food-related, but it also conveys strong personality.

5. Use shapes to add texture to your infographic.

Much of the time, people forget to add texture to their infographics. Texture simply means combining different shapes to structure your infographic visually. Notice in this example how the combination of simple rectangles and circles creates new shapes and organizes the overall infographic aesthetically.

6. Use an online infographic maker tool.

Many user-friendly tools for creating infographics include drag/drop widgets that enable you to resize and color shapes with ease, and most have free versions and premium upgrades. Venngage and Easel.ly both afford you a lot of freedom in devising your infographic creations.

7. Craft a great title.

Finally, make sure you have a catchy title that will get people’s attention. In general, people prefer list or process infographics. The titles for these usually begin with “How to do _________ in 7 easy steps” or “10 companies doing an awesome job at ___________.”

If you experience writer’s block, try the user-friendly Portent’s title generator. Additionally, Klock.work gives you examples of infographic layouts to complement the title it generates.

A version of this article first appeared on the Venngage blog.

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