The process for conceiving, designing, and producing an infographic can seem overwhelming. With a team at your side, however, the process should work to align your goals with your finished product. When each step brings you closer to reaching your intended audience and to capturing your company’s brand, the infographic design process should be an exciting, effortless endeavor.
Step 1: Define Goals
To make an effective infographic, it needs to be on par with your overall objective. Understanding what kind of impact you’re looking for will clarify and strengthen the relationship between text and image.
Step 2: Write Your Content
Once purpose and means are outlined, writing your infographic’s text is the next step. Text helps to clarify your infographic for your audience, detail the information, and capture nuance. When developing content, make sure that it advances the purpose of the infographic at every step.
Keep data involved when possible, and make sure that there will be a way to articulate a clear, connected visual once the text is final. Being concise — in terms of idea as well as grammar — will place emphasis on the overall scope of the piece as well as provide seamless interaction between text and image for the reader.
Step 3: Whip Up a Wireframe
Before jumping into the visuals, it’s important to have a plan. This way, the vision you and your team have conceived can be executed with minimal snags or hiccups. Creating a wireframe provides the opportunity to consider how the final piece will look before the time is invested into the design itself. Consider the wireframe to be a skeleton or framework for the final piece. When forming the wireframe, keep in mind your original goals for the project. Are you looking to create a narrative with your information? Do you prefer to simply present information for your audience to interpret? Considering the impact of the final product should inform the layout of the content in relation to the design.
When deliberating art style and color palette, make sure to take into account desired tone and audience as well as company brand. Should this piece push the envelope? Is it part of a broader project or press kit? By the end of the wireframe, a cohesive infographic that matches project goals should be in sight.
Step 4: Design and Revise
At this stage, you’ll finally see everything in one place: art, color, content, typography. This version should capture the project goals and access its target audience. Give your infographic a close inspection to make sure that all elements suit your company and project needs.
If there were any tweaks after seeing the infographic, get those all shaped up. Once everything is finalized, confirm that it’s available in the formats you determined during step 1 (print, web, etc.).
What Happens Next?
Send your infographic out into the world! Once your infographic is launched and live, take a minute to debrief on the process that just happened. Always remember to set metrics to help gauge your distribution success. Infographics are a keystone of visual communication strategy and contribute significantly to content marketing and company profiles. An infographic can exist as a standalone piece or as part of visual communication campaign, so keep in mind how this piece could connect to diverse projects or broader company goals. With these notes in mind, you and your team will have a strong, accessible foundation for future projects.
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