Infographic design: keep it simple to get started
When you think about designing your very first public health infographic, you can keep it simple. In this blog post, we want to show you
What is an infographic?
Infographics (/ˌinfōˈɡrafik/ | noun.) are the visualization of data or ideas.
The process of developing and publishing infographics is “data visualization”, “information design”, or “information architecture”. It is the detailed planning of specific information that is to be provided to a particular audience to meet specific objectives. The goal of information design is to help humans process information as efficiently as possible.
Through the use of infographics, you are trying to convey complex information to an audience in a manner that can be quickly consumed and easily understood.
On this page, you’ll find:
Our best articles and tutorials on infographics
Podcast episodes on infographic design & public health
Course designed to help you build infographics with tools you know and use
Free resources to get you started with infographic design
Learn to Design Public Health Infographics
Infographic Design Articles and Tutorials
These articles, tutorials, and case studies will help you
in your journey of designing infographics in public health.
VIEW ALL ARTICLES ON INFOGRAPHICS
How long does it take to design an infographic?
This blog post is a part of our mini-series to bring you quick tips to ensure your infographic design projects are a success! Infographics can be a
How to get started on your infographics project?
This blog post is a part of our mini-series to bring you quick tips to ensure your infographic design projects are a success! The beginning of the
Collaboration is key when designing an infographic
This blog post is a part of our mini-series to bring you quick tips to ensure your infographic design projects are a success! Infographics can be a
How creating infographics fit into my career journey
During graduate school, I wanted to spend time doing something that was going to make a difference and be important in the world. So, how
Using infographics to communicate in public health is important
Your audience is increasingly time-pressured nowadays, and this is in part because we receive more information than ever before. Some sources say that the numbers are
Resources for Infographic Design
Interested in designing your own public health infographics but not sure how to get started? Use these resources to get started.
4 ways to use infographics in your public health work
A FREE GUIDE for public health professionals. With this guide, you will walk away with: 4 applications for infographics in public health, numerous ideas for each application & sample infographics for each application.
6 Day Infographic Challenge
At the end of this challenge, you will have confidently chosen a piece of work to disseminate to an audience and have taken the first few steps to designing your first infographic.
Infographic Design Templates
Six (6) easy to edit templates designed in Microsoft Power Point:
for those comfortable with infographic design and are looking for a quick starter guide: Requires Microsoft Power Point – no additional software needed.
Infographic Design Podcast Episodes
New year. New you. New job? Introducing a new mini series & Career Workshop.
This year, January 14th to be exact, PH SPOT celebrates 5 years. It’s unbelievable that 5 years have gone by already. Sujani created PH SPOT
Why all public health professionals should know how to design an infographic, with Sujani Siva
Show Notes After writing the Opinion piece on the PH SPOT blog, The rise of infographics, and why I believe all public health professionals should
Frequently Asked Questions on Public Health Infographics (FAQs)
Infographics (/ˌinfōˈɡrafik/ | noun.) are the visualization of data or ideas.
The process of developing and publishing infographics is “data visualization”, “information design”, or “information architecture”. It is the detailed planning of specific information that is to be provided to a particular audience to meet specific objectives. The goal of information design is to help humans process information as efficiently as possible.
Through the use of infographics, you are trying to convey complex information to an audience in a manner that can be quickly consumed and easily understood.
Yes! Download this free guide: 4 ways to use infographics in your public health work (+ a list of ideas for each of the 4 ways!)
Design is “a plan for arranging elements in such a way as to best accomplish a particular purpose” (Madame L’Amic of the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, 1972).
The elements of design include line, shape, color, texture, and typography.
The principles of design are guidelines on how to use the elements of design (line, shape, colour, texture and typography) in an aesthetically pleasing way.
As a public health professional, our responsibility is to effectively communicate findings to our audiences.
Today, we (along with our audience) receive more information than ever before – some sources say that the numbers are as high as 100,000+ words per day, and this doesn’t include what people consume at work! Getting through all of this noise, and effectively communicating your public health message (whether it’s to the public, senior management, or stakeholders of a project) is extremely important. We would even go as far as saying that as a public health professional, it is our responsibility to ensure that quality public health information is translated in a way that is easily consumable by population groups we serve and deeply care about. And if you haven’t guessed it, this is where infographics come in!
Infographic design requires the use of a number of concepts including psychology, data science, and graphic design, but in our opinion, that’s not to say that only specialists in those areas can design them.
Public health professionals are in a unique position as content experts to lead infographic design projects. They just need to know some basic concepts, the available tools/resources, and how to execute the design process.
You can use a number of software to design infographics. Some of the popular ones are Adobe Creative Suite (i.e. Illustrator), Canva, or Venngage.
The software we love to use for infographic design is MS PowerPoint. (Yes, MS PowerPoint is not meant to be a design software, but simple software are more than enough to design infographics.)
This is also the software we teach in our course! The Infographics 101 course is for beginners and aims to teach infographic design using software that is already available to public health professionals (instead of investing in new/expensive ones). We have found that great infographics can be designed using PowerPoint.
There are 9 simple steps to designing an infographic. Starting with understanding your objective, and intended audience; then building your story and vision; drafting out the first version of it; pulling it all together by collaborating with your stakeholders; and finaly designing your infographic. You can download the guide here.
A “layout” is the arrangement of your visual elements and content. Since infographics tell a story, ensuring you select the best layout to effectively (and efficiently) tell your story is important. There are 6 major infographic layouts: statistical, process, timeline, comparison, geographical, text-based & a combination of multiple core layouts.
