I know… Inforgraphics are really heating up right now. If you are trying to stay ahead of or even near the front of the curve by now you are well aware of Infographics – these super powerful visuals displays. In addition to be visually very impressive, some sites also offer up the ability to embed their infographics on your own site – a win/win situation as you get some great content and the infographic originator gets amazing exposure and also some great inbound SEO value.
One service that is really trying to make a business out of infographics is a company called Visual.ly. They currently offer up a pretty massive library of inforgraphics that you can both view and also embed on to your own site – if you are still not aware of what an infographic is I strongly suggest you spend a few minutes on their site. In addition Visual.ly is rolling out a do it yourself feature allowing users to create infographics of their own. For now though they are offering up a few already “Pre-Baked” inforgraphic templates that you can have some real fun with (including this @Techcruch vs @Mashable Twitter Showdown inforgraphic that I created using their service and embedded below).
That said maybe you don’t want to wait until Visual.ly unveils their fully rendered offering, do not fret as there are plenty of very talented graphic artists currently in this space offering services. If you are one of them feel free to add a comment below introducing yourself. Also go ahead and Google infographics and you’ll see some really impressive designers.
infographic created with visual.ly
Thanks for the post. This is a well designed graphic that a freelancer would have trouble providing at low cost, never mind free. But if the client has a good budget, he or she can hire a graphic designer who specializes in visualizing information. Newspaper designers have been doing this for years. Check out this one I did for The Boston Globe some years ago: http://www.perugi.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/symphony.jpg
@dperugi I hear you on the free part… Visual.ly did a nice job of creating a template for this one and then allowing anyone to pull data from 2 different twitter accounts. That said I thought your was very solid. As I’ve said to you before, I know the right clients would be very lucky to be working with you! Thanks for sharing.
Usage of infographic design is increasing on the websites and other online spheres but it adds little value to the website. People still prefer to read a well written content than a fancy image.
@Free Man I’m going to be honest here… what gives? I looked through your Livefyre comments from the past few hours and a good deal of them say “nice infographic”…
That said, I do want to address your comment – I’m going to respectfully disagree with you in so far as yes, an infographic of little value does add little value, but when when done right infographics can provide very compelling narratives that can add a great deal to a website but in terms of thought leadership and impressive visual diversity.
All the best to you.
Dave