What You Can Learn From These 10 Infographics – Social Media
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Infographics have really been around for a couple of decades; traditional print media has long featured graphic-dominated presentations in places like the color front and back pages, often covering topics like intriguing statistical sporting events. But it has only been the last couple of years that they’ve become the go-to representation on the web for teaching an audience about the numerical, in a sleek and distributable format, which often goes viral when done right.
In this post we present to you a range of 10 contemporary infographics and some key takeaways that you can gain from each individual design. It should be noted that infographics really come in all shapes and sizes – but there are important differentiators that make some spread more widely, convey a real message (opposed to pooling “related” statistics together for “organization’s” sake), are clear in routing the reader along a relevant path(s) and use design elements that offer a helping hand in the information consumption process.
1. Balance Your Media Diet
Wired Magazine came up with what probably wouldn’t be considered a conventional infographic by today’s standards, but is a throwback to where infographics came from. Shaped like the food pyramid, this condensed media diet approach is just what might remedy scores of information loaded readers. With a sectional look at all of the different ways that people spend their time online, we might see a move of infographics towards this style, tending to the most important reasons why infographics exist in the first place – to visualize the data.
- PRO: Brilliant 3D design that provides quickly consumable information. It’s immediately engaging.
- CON: The unhealthy message of telling their readers that they should be “enjoying media” for 9 hours a day!
2. Airbnb’s Global Growth
Cool Infographics highlights an infographic made by Airbnb, an online booking service for competitively priced lodging at unique locations. This is a classic example that showcases the geography of the company’s success, which works out nicely as Airbnb hosts travellers from around the world. The stunning maps paint a definitive picture of their phenomenal global growth from 2011 to 2012.
Comparisons are always an effective measuring tool when trying to get a proper perspective and Airbnb does just that on the infographic by adding to what the public uses their site for (booking) with the notion that their users have taken more photos than the British Museum’s drawing collection or that of the total number of object’s in the Louvre’s collection. In pivoting mode, Airbnb’s infographic has made it clear that their 24/7 and 366 days a year (it’s a leap year!) customer service availability is a strong benchmark for how their web service should be admired.
Takeaways
- PRO: It does a great job of showing the viewer Airbnb’s growth through data. The viewer immediately understands how much Airbnb has grown.
- CON: This infographic weighs heavily on the self-promotion side. Generally, the best infographics are those that help people understand a complex set of data relevant to their industry. Infographics that are completely about the company that created the infographic lowers the trust around the set of data.
3. The Feltron 2008 Annual Report
Felton, co-creator of the data gathering site, Daytum and NYC based graphic designer, created a cluster of infographics that sizes his life for the year of 2008. His annual reports are really extraordinary as they are multi-layered. “The Measure of a Year”- goes through his personal mileage, foody habits and tastes and then forays into showing his exact movement in the places he was in most. The typography helps this infographic come across like a small e-book (no detail is left behind). Definitely on the higher end of infographics, but still out for the average reader. For a person to share this type of statistical degree of his life is truly remarkable.
Takeaways
- PRO: It is a bit dated, but it’s an excellent example of a data visualization with minimal amounts of text. Magnitudes have been turned in to geometric shapes, where the viewer can quickly see where the subject’s time has been spent.
- CON: Allowing viewers to see a larger version of this first page would be helpful.
