A Compilation of Infographics Submitted in April Part 1

We are playing catch up and I do hope you bare with us on this. Over the last few weeks, we have received a very large amount of submissions, but some of our writers have been out of the office while others have been focused on the redesign of this site (how do you like it??), which has put us behind in posting these. Because we want every submission to have its chance to be seen on our site, this post will be a compilation of some of the many infographics that were submitted in April. Check them out, come up with your own opinions, and checkout our thoughts.

1. Cyberbullying Infographic:

With cyberbullying being a hot topic these days, this infographic from WebWatcherNow.com does a great job of showcasing the problem and explaining just how bad things are. While there is a lot of text in this infographic, there’s a healthy amount of data visualization to break things up. The color scheme is well thought out because it gives you the feel of a heat map, where red is something worth paying attention to while yellow is not as important. Granted, they didn’t exactly lay it out like that everywhere, but it still has that feel. My favorite section is the one shown in the image on the left. I have two suggestions that I feel would take this infographic to the next level: A.) offer up a conclusion. As it stands, the infographic just ends, but it would be great to dive into legislation about cyberbullying at the very end to tie this infographic up. B.) Use some interesting typography for the title. Yes, this is a serious topic, but that is all the more reason to make the title eye catching, otherwise this great infographic may be lost on people looking for eye candy.

 

2. Oklahoma Car Crash Statistics & Injuries Infographic:

This infographic comes from Oklahoma-Law.com and showcases a variety of car crash statistics from the state.  The infographic provides some enlightening information (especially if you have any interest in Oklahoma), and does a good job of visualization the data.  Honestly, this is a kind of dry topic as it’s really hard to take a site about as specific as Oklahoma Law and come up with an inthraling infographic topic.  That said, whoever produced this infographic did a good job of coming up with some interesting statistics and a fun way to present them.  Overall, I have just one thing that I would change with this infographic and that is the 3D pie charts at the bottom.  The majority of the infographic uses flat imagery.  Yes, the crash test dummies are kind of 3 dimensional, but they fit with the flat look and feel.  Introducing a 3D element at the end when none of the other charts and graphs are 3D is a little jarring and makes me feel like I’m looking at an Excel document someone decided to spice up.  Making these flat pie charts, but not your average pie chart (maybe take out the center, for instance) would make these still stand out without introducing a different design theme.

3. A World Without Google Infographic

This infographic produced for SingleGrain is OK, but not my favorite because it’s just so wordy with very little data visualization.  The text in the top timeline is too small to read… in fact the text everywhere is too hard to read because it’s just too small.  All in all, this is more of a reading assignment than an infographic.  What could take this to the next level would be some basic data visualization, something I know this design firm prides themselves on, so I’m surprised it’s not utilized here.  For instance, Google brings a great deal of money to the US and world economies, so why not showcase that.  It would be very interesting to know just how much money the world would be without, in a world without Google.  It would also be interesting to showcase how merchants would also be at a loss, as they wouldn’t have the large audience that Google brings.  Yes, in a world without Google, Yahoo and Bing would take the search audience, but their algorithms are sub par, so spam would continue to reign supreme in search results.  Google gives online businesses a chance to compete in a way that levels the playing field, which this infographic could have shown through hard numbers about Google and ecommerce.  All in all, this infographic was an amazing idea, but poor execution.

4. The Longest Rail Tunnels in the World Infographic

This infographic comes from GGRRail.com, which is a company that “provides safe and efficient lifting solutions for all areas of railway infrastructure, from track maintenance to station refurbishment.”  You hear something like that and you probably wonder, how can an exciting infographic be made from this topic?  Well, the folks at GGRRail.com showed us how with this infographic.  The topic is fun, the color scheme is catchy, and most importantly, the data visualization is spot on!  The first image you see brings you right into the infographic.  My only issue is that it gets pretty hard to read the closer to the center of the circle you get, but that’s why they provide a key.  The bottom section relies heavily on typography when it doesn’t need to.  This section could be a lot less cluttered if the designer let the pictures do the talking instead of the text, but this being the 2nd infographic they’ve sent our way, it’s a great step in the right direction!

 

5.  The Best & Worst U.S. Cities for Staying Young Infographic

There seems to be a big debate in the infographic space these days about whether short and to the point infographics are better than long, data rich infographics.  I’m on the side of long, data rich, but not everybody feels that way and this infographic from RealAge.com displays a short, focused infographic very well.  The color scheme of the infographic is very appealing, the title is eye catching, and the information is pretty interesting.  I’m not sure older people would be too happy about being associated with a frown face,  but all that said, the map is a nice visual that’s very easy to take in.  Of course, this is where my argument for the long infographic comes into play: there’s just not enough information.  If an infographic leaves you wanting even more data, then I feel that it hasn’t done its job properly.  For instance, what is the median age in all these cities?  What is the population of elderly people versus young people.  What does this study define as “old” vs “young?”  These are just some questions that could easily be answered with more data visualization.  The text at the bottom is fun, but a lot of text.  If keeping this infographic short was/is important to the designer, then the solution would be to take away the text at the bottom and replace it with more data about the ages in each city.

6. The Restaurant Business in Numbers Infographic

This infographic comes from FeeFighters.com, which is a site that’s been helping merchants find the best credit card processors out there.  I’d say this is another example of the long versus short infographic debate, and another where I feel that longer would have helped.  First of all, this is a very text heavy infographic.  There are 2 charts that include data visualization, but they are so small that they’re hard to read.  There are so many ways the text could have been substituted for data visualization, but it looks like they chose to focus on typography instead.   I think this is a very fun visual, but not really an infographic.  All that said, I do love the branding for this infographic.  Choosing to border the entire image with FeeFighters imagery was a great idea.  It’s not too in your face because it just feels like part of the design.  For anyone looking for a way to sneak their branding into an infographic, maybe think outside of the infographic like the folks at FeeFighters clearly did.

7. How Loud is Too Loud Infographic

This infographic comes to us from SonicElectronix.com and showcases how sound is measured.  All in all, the information in this infographic is really interesting.  It comes right out of the gate showing you how long you can listen to a certain volume before hearing loss occurs.  It flows nicely because the next natural question is: what makes sounds this loud?  And the infographic does a good job of providing that answer.  The rock concert section is pretty interesting, and it’s pretty funny that this data is even out there.  Unfortunately, the bottom half loses me because it’s way too text heavy.  There are simple ways to visualize a lot of that data to make it easier to take in the “Have you heard” section.  The very bottom section isn’t as hard to get through because the text is minimal.  As such, I suggest the designer pair down the text or visualize the data more in the bottom half to not lose viewers.

 

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