Infographics! What are they?

Over  the past  many years, information flow over the internet has taken different trends in such a way that the need to create an atmosphere in which people will keep wanting to know more and more is key. A picture is worth a thousand words – based on this, infographics would carry hundreds of thousands of words, yet if you let a reader choose between a full-length 1000-word article and an infographic that needs a few scroll-downs, they’d probably prefer absorbing information straight from the infographic.

Infographics have been around for many years and recently the proliferation of a number of easy-to-use, tools have made the creation of infographics available to a large segment of the population. Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have also allowed for individual infographics to be spread among many people around the world,  Away from the internet, infographics are commonly used in newspapers  to show the weather, as well as maps, site plans, and graphs for statistical data.

Infographics have gone through a number of generations dating back to   around 7500 BCE when Early humans created cave paintings and maps, artifacts that could be considered the very first instances of infographics.Fast forward to the 21st Century, By the year 2000, Adobe Flash-based animations on the Internet had made use of many key practices in creating infographics in order to create a variety of products and games. With the rise of alternatives to Adobe Flash, such as HTML 5 and CSS3, infographics are now created in a variety of media with a number of software tools

The big Questions are

“ What are Infographics?,

“How are they created?”

To make this article relevant, I will attempt to answer both questions using  an  infographic

what-why-how-of-infographicsinfographic-of-infographics-detailThe use of infographics not only save on time, but also increases the level of creativity which is what many writers are looking forward to and the sooner this is realized, the easier it will be for information to be passed on to the intended audience in the quickest way possible. One of the companies that has made it a priority to make use of infographics is BIT REBELS  because  they can testify to the impact of infographics.

While not everyone can make infographics from scratch, there are tools available on the Web that will help you create your very own infographics. In this article, am listing more my top 3 to help you get your messages across to your readers, visually.

What about me.

What About Me?” is a personalization tool that produces colorful infographics that display your social media habits automatically from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The tool is provided by Intel.Create an infographic of your digital life and become inspired by the people you know, the things you see, and the experiences you have online.

Vizualise.Me

Vizualize.me allows you to create an online resume format that is beautiful, relevant and fun, all with just one click. It enables you to express your professional accomplishments in a simple yet compelling personal visualization, and will help optimize your LinkedIn Profile to get a kickass Visual Resume.

Pictochart

With Piktochart, you get to create an innovative Infographic using a combination of different types of visualizations: themes, icons, vectors, images and chart exporter. Drag-and-drop and click your way through color schemes, shapes and fonts, then export the materials as static or html to easily embed it for use at your site.

There are very many tools that can be used to create infographics as long as you have the summary of the information you intend to put across.