DIY Infographic Applications: What You Need to Know

Information Graphics, or Infographics, are incredibally popular right now. I’m sure you’ve seen them all over Facebook and Pinterest, and you’re probably wondering how you can capitalize on the infographic trend. Infographics are visual representations of information, data, or knowledge.  Infographics present complex information clearly and can help reach a different audience than data in a text format. I recently experimented with a number of DIY infographic sites to see what I could create without enlisting the help of a graphic designer. Overall I was pretty impressed with the free tools available and I can definitely see how they may benefit organizations who have a large amount of data they want to share with the world. Organizations that want to visualize concepts rather than data may have a bit harder time finding a free application that can help deliver their message.

Infogr.am - pretty great tool to create your own infographics from your data. You can upload different types of chart and upload photos. Easy to use and you can create some nice, simple infographic on whichever topic you want.  Start with a template and change the layout as you’d like.

Piktochart - another cool site where you can upload your own data. This site was my favorite because it allows you to do all sorts of customizations. You can insert charts, graphics, and shapes. It’s easy to make tons of great infographics, but it may take a while to get comfortable with the features. Start with templates and make modifications to make your infographics unique.

Visual.ly – this site connects to your Facebook page and creates a summary of your acitivty and insights. It can also connect to Twitter and you can track the life of a certain desired hashtag. I tried this but it took forever and the final result never loaded. The example of #Pinterest was pretty cool though, and I definitely will try this again. I’ve included two examples in this post of infographics create with this application and I have to say I’m pretty happy with both.

My Social Strand - connects to your Facebook profie to make an infographic and uses some basic information from you profile including a few past profile pictures. You actually have to complete a short survey to fill out the “data” areas of the infographic. All end products look basically the exact same, with slight modifications. I thought it was pretty cool but lost interest quickly.

What other applications have you used to create infographics? Read an article with more applications you can use to create infographics here. 

CREATED USING MY SOCIAL STRAND

CREATED USING VISUAL.LY