How to Make An Infographic, College Guide

Visuals are an important component in content creation. It adds appeal and a dash of interest to your articles and presentations. Videos and infographics are also great opportunities to showcase your creative side.

As a college student, you will create literally hundreds of essays and presentations all throughout your college life. As you develop ways on how to effectively communicate with others, you might want to explore the powers of infographics.

What Is An Infographic?

An infographic is a visually appealing method where you can communicate complicated ideas in a more simple yet interesting way. It can easily grab your audiences’ attention compared to plain texts. It is a good tool that can be used in consolidating big ideas into more comprehensible key points.

Infographics For College Students

To improve presentations and to display your interest and intent to express yourself more effectively in reports or school presentations, creating infographics can be a good idea. Here are some tips on how to make an effective infographic for your presentation needs.

Have A Clear Focus

Your infographic should be simple but complete at the same time. It does not necessarily have to contain all the information on a topic. Focus on the central idea of the content that you are making an infographic for. Choose elements and data that can help you deliver information without rambling on texts or making your visuals confusing. Be straight to the point and precise.

Gather Your Content And Fact Check

Before creating your infographic, research is essential. Get the most up-to-date information for your content. Create a narrative that best fits to deliver your information and transform it into a story. Most infographics focus on numerical data or short facts. Figure your story and how to deliver your information in a fun yet informative way.

Sketch It Out

Most of the time, infographics are created from scratch.  It would be best to create a sketch and outline of your infographic before you begin with designing. Check out the internet for design inspiration and review how most infographics present their data. From here, you can create a design on your own and layout your information in a more effective and presentable way.

Keep Them Readable

Choose colors and texts that are easy on the eyes. The most common mistake in creating infographics is overdoing the design. When you do, readers have a hard time understanding your content. Be conscious of your choice of design elements. Have enough white space to allow the eyes to breathe, check alignments and go for less confusing layouts. Maximize readability and avoid too many colors and images to minimize confusion.

Cite Resources

Infographics are robust visuals that are usually a collaboration of different ideas and content. To be able to deliver a more effective infographic, do not forget to cite your resources. When sharing data such as numbers, events, dates, and names of people, provide a clear source of where your information is coming from. Is this data still relevant today? Make your infographic more legitimate by making it easy for others to access the raw data from where the infographic is generated from.

Choose The Right Tools

There are many online resources and tools that can help you create a comprehensive infographic. For a non-graphic person, it can be difficult to come up with a layout or design that would catch and engage your audience’s attention. Tools like Piktochart and Canva are free to use and can easily help you develop aesthetically pleasing infographics. Build your own or take advantage of the free templates available in these online tools. Visme and Infogram are also free tools that you can use to easily create charts, graphs, and other data visualizations.

Practice makes perfect. Designing infographics may be difficult at first but it should not hinder you from learning and exploring different ways on how you can improve in presenting your data.

Get some help by asking for feedback from your teachers or colleagues. Share your work with people so you can receive genuine reviews. You will not be able to improve in designing and creating infographics unless you incorporate the comments your design receives. Be more than willing to accept criticism as you seek improvements.