(Click any image to view the entire infographic.)

Buying vs. Renting Textbooks

Textbook rental is a popular way to save on the exorbitant cost of books. Students can save over $2,500 in a four-year education by renting their textbooks. That’s a lot of bacon money, kids. Of course, there is a list of “better” ways you could spend your money, if you want to be practical like that. We also see how rental saves taxpayer money, which parents and grads can be happy about. (We’d like to point out that taxpayer savings are represented by pigs. While intended to give the impression of a piggy bank, it reminds us of bacon.) This infographic is easy to follow, so you can scroll through it at the bookstore.

The 14 Best and Worst Dorms in the Country

Although this infographic doesn’t give any of the dirty details on why these dorms are awesome or awful, it’s still pretty useful. Maybe we don’t want to know why Garner Hall is the worst dorm in the country. It might involve bodily fluids, pest infestation, or gray dining hall food. You should save the link or embed code to this IG when making your housing requests. That way, when John from Math 203 shows up every morning smelling like the burnt hair in his dorm’s carpet, you can link him and he can put in a request to move ASAP.

Reading Students Like An Open Facebook

Did you know that 70% of colleges say a student’s Facebook profile is a medium to high priority in admissions? You ought to change your profile pic to that cute high school grad picture with Grandma. This IG uses a nice bright color palette to convey some terrifying (though useful) information for prospective college and grad school students. The designer used simple bar and circle graphs with varied orientations and icons, keeping the data visualization interesting. Bookmark this IG to review again before you mail in your application.

Reading Professors Like An Open Facebook

It’s nice to see this IG, directly related to the one above, use similar tactics but new design for its data. While the same circle graphs are present, the color scheme is different, and the bar graph has been reimagined. This also has more illustration, like the cute desk setup. 91% of professors use social media as part of their jobs… so look them up! Even with privacy settings, you’ll still at least find a profile pic, and sometimes those are worth their pixels in gold. Or laughs. Or bacon. (Wait, maybe not in bacon.)

College Students: Is Twitter Hurting Your Grades?

Admit it. You’ve tweeted during class. You’ve tweeted in the library. You’ve tweeted while waiting to talk to your prof. You tweet all the time, but is it affecting your education? This dynamic Twitter-blue and gray infographic wants to figure that out, and it analyzes some pretty interesting data to do so. As long as you’re not tweeting about the cute barista at the coffee shop this morning, Twitter can play a positive role in a learning environment. We already know social media plays an enormous role in, well, social relationships, but educational usage is pretty cool.

An Infographic About the Class of 2011

Our recent grads have grown up with the internet. They are tech-savvy. They don’t bat an eye at actors drinking brand-name sodas and shopping at major retailers in movies and TV. And yes, the first thing they think of when they hear U2 is Irish rockstar Bono. They may also fear tap water, opting for the finest in bottled H20. This is our new generation. Congratulations, class of 2011! To celebrate your entrance into the “real world,” maybe you should fry up some of…

America’s Favorite Bacon Dishes

We designed this appropriately red and pink infographic. It uses social media ratings to determine the most popular ways to eat bacon in some major US cities. These range from pretty normal fare (double bacon cheeseburgers are #1 in San Diego) to the absurd (chorizo stuffed dates wrapped in bacon are somehow the Chicago favorite… Atlanta has similar taste). We don’t know where all these people who eat bacon with dates are hiding, but the IG shows its the most popular pairing. If you’re a no-frills bacon eater, just fry it up and chow down–we won’t judge.

Wrapping Things Up (Other Than Bacon-Wrapped Dates)

For busy college students, the faster the info is available, the better. Infographics are a great source of information for this huge portion of internet users, and there are a wealth of topics that will peak their interest. Food is always a plus, but data on financial planning, careers, cars, entertainment, politics, and more will resonate strongly, too. Keep it simple, use pictures, minimize text. These simple rules apply to all infographics, by the way: you should always focus on data visualization, telling as little about your topic through text as possible. Infographics without the graphics are just info.

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<div align="center"><a href="http://www.submitinfographics.com/full-size-infographics/infographic-Bacon-friendseat-800px.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.submitinfographics.com/full-size-infographics/infographic-Bacon-friendseat-800px.jpg" alt="infographic" width="430"><br />Click to Enlarge</a><br /><a>Via FriendsEat.com</a><br />View Other <a href="http://www.submitinfographics.com">Infographics</a></div> <p>

This infographic is from the folks of FriendsEat.com. Everyone loves bacon, and this infographic dishes out 25 facts regarding the beloved breakfast meat. This one is pretty decent- clean, tri-color pallette that utilizes the colors of the American flag, substantial factual information, and a humorous story to tell. This infographic is, however, considerably text heavy and would leave the viewer confused and disinterested if the text were to removed.

The first few images are great. Especially the aircraft carrier graphic, which uses a real-life comparison to show just how much people really love to eat bacon. But from there on out, the infographic seems to lack solid data visualization. It feels a bit forced and crowded. An example: with the statistic stating that one pig supplies over 23 pounds of bacon. A great way to have shown this fact is perhaps with a scale, with a pig on one side and a graphic visualization of 23 pounds of back on the other. Instead, the graphic as it is just looks like a pig and big long piece of bacon, with no further quantification. That theme seems to continue throughout the Bacon infographic, as many of the graphics are left hanging or are relying to heavily on text.

To be more effective, this infographic could utilize pie charts and bar graphs to help truly visualize the data. Despite its shortcomings, this infographic does utilize a clean color pallette and keeps the dimensions within reasonable limits. Apart from the aircraft carrier visual, there’s no real kicker, nothing that really makes you say “Wow!” I’d give this infographic a C overall.

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<div align="center"><a href="http://www.giftrocket.com/images/blog/bacon-dishes-infographic-full.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.giftrocket.com/images/blog/bacon-dishes-infographic-full.jpg" alt="infographic" width="430"><br />Click to Enlarge</a><br /><a>Via GiftRocket</a><br />View Other <a href="http://www.submitinfographics.com">Infographics</a></div> <p>

This infographic is one that we worked on for the folks at GiftRocket. This is our own in-house Infographic, and we can’t critique without bias. But we’d love to hear feedback!