It can be difficult to create an outline for an infographic if it’s your first time. There are so many conditions to keep in mind, that most people tend to get overwhelmed within the first five minutes of designing one that they give up. The best strategy when first making an infographic is to take it step by step.
For most people, an infographic is produced as an additional piece of content to accompany a blog post or an article. Keeping this in mind, it makes sense that your infographic is a visual summary of that article. This does not mean that you copy and paste the entire copy into a very longform design, but rather you should pull the main ideas and data points from that post.
Step 1: Determine what type of infographic you are creating
There are roughly nine different types of infographic layout that are most commonly used. Chances are if you are transforming a blog post into an infographic, the type will either be a list-based or process infographic, or an informational infographic. Rarely are blog posts highly statistical, unless you are transforming a research study into an infographic, in which case you will likely have a range of data points to choose from that you could implement into a chart.
Let’s say that the title of your blog post is “The Dos and Don’t Of Content Marketing”, what type of infographic would that be? Well, it’s a comparison infographic since you are presenting the positive and negative aspects of content marketing, but it is also a list-based article.
Just the word “comparison” should suggest that your infographic is split in half, listing the “Dos” on one side and the “Don’ts” on the other.
Step 2: Choosing the best text
Once you’ve established the layout of your infographic, it’s time to start extracting the appropriate text. The first rule is to avoid copying and pasting large chunks of text. If you’re going to make your audience read a lot anyway, what’s the point of creating an infographic? Try to limit the chunks of text to 1 to 2 sentences per section. My general rule of thumb is pick out 1 sentence from every 5-7 sentences in a section of your blog to include in an infographic. If the article is short to begin with, you might be able to get away with including more text into the graphic.
Here’s a quick test: From the above paragraph, which point do you think is the most important to include in your infographic? If you said, “The general rule of thumb is pick out1 sentence from every 5-7 sentences in a section of your blog to include in the infographic” then you were right. It perfectly summarizes the section, and explains exactly how to “pull out the right words”.
Sometimes, you will be faced with a very longform article that is jam-packed with important facts, statistics and tips. You might feel compelled to include a lot of that information into your infographic, but try not to succumb to the pressure! Try your best to really pull the key points out of your copy, so that your final design product is a super succinct summary of that article. The point of your infographic is to compel people to read the original post. The point of your #infographic is to compel people to read the original post. @Venngage Click To Tweet
Step 3: Picking out the data points
If you’re blog post doesn’t have any data points, don’t panic. You don’t necessarily need to include a statistic in your infographic. Just remember, though, that almost any reference to a number can be visualized in some form of chart. Just remember, though, that almost any reference to a number can be visualized in some form of chart. #infographic @Venngage Click To Tweet The most important question to ask yourself is what kind of chart should you choose? Look back at this article and see if you can find a number anywhere. In the second section I state that you should only pick out 1 sentence from every 5 to 7 sentence paragraph or section. This is a ratio that you can easily represent using a pictogram. Here’s what it might look like:
Example 1:
Example 2:
Both of the above pictograms visualize a ratio of 1:5 and can therefore be used to represent the sentence in question.
Any percentages stated in an article can also be easily visualized using a pie chart or a donut chart, and comparisons between quantities are best visualized with bar and column charts. Ideally, when repurposing your blog post to create an outline for your infographic, you are looking for key words, numbers and statistics, as well as imagery.when repurposing your blog post as an #infographic, you are looking for key words, numbers and statistics, and imagery. @venngage Click To Tweet When in doubt, search through Pinterest to find examples of infographic layouts that you can use as inspiration.
