It is said that an image can say a thousand words. Infographic is a special kind of image that represents information through various types of graphs and charts. Many of you may already be familiar with the ‘infographic’ term, while many of you have just heard it today. Infographics give the opportunity to share information and connect with the world through interesting visuals that represent a piece of detailed information on something. However, creating an eye-catching infographic is time-consuming and pricey. But there are some tools and websites to build beautiful infographics for free, which we will get to know from this article.
What is Infographic? What are the types of infographics?
Infographic is the graphical representation of a subject with information that combines texts too. Using an infographic, a descriptive subject or information can be beautifully presented through just one picture. In other words, an infographic is a picture that presents the words of the mind in a simple way. While a regular image is just an image to look at, the infographic explains a whole lot of stuff through the image.
Although the infographic was mostly used for journalistic presentation in newspapers, it has expanded its uses over the years. Now there are mainly nine types of infographics used, which include statistical, informational, timeline, process, geographic, comparison, list, hierarchical, and resume infographics.
Statistical infographic mainly visualizes and compares the survey results from multiple sources. If you want to present a specialized concept or new communicating concept or even provide an overview of a topic, the informational infographic will come in handy.
For the historical visualization, a timeline infographic is best that highlights important dates or provides an overview of an event. If you want to present a step-by-step process or guide, the process infographic will help you out.
If anyone wants to visualize demography or location-based data, a geographic infographic is a savior to represent a large quantity of data. Many people face a problem when they need to choose something from multiple options; a comparison infographic will help them to choose the right thing. Nevertheless, for people who want to share some tips or lots of resources, a list infographic will be a perfect choice.
Finally, the infographic resume is the current trend in the job market. This can help the interview to take a glance at important points with no effort.
Benefits of Infographic
Although infographics are believed to have been introduced around 25,000 years ago but got popular in the 1970s. Since then, it has been providing immense benefits to the journalist and marketing personnel. Nowadays, people like to read infographics while they are reading articles too. People from any profession can give a presentation in a short period of time using the image that has information.
For example, you have to give a presentation about your company or any other topic at a big event, and the time is only 1 (one) minute. What will you do then? Surely you can’t make a presentation by making 15 or 20 slides? And to accomplish the task in one minute, you will not be able to say the main points in 1 minute to attract the attention of the audience. But you can present this work beautifully with just one infographic photo. Surely now you understand the benefit of an infographic.
Furthermore, presentations provided through infographics are remembered for a long time, and the main points can be easily explained.
Top free software to create infographics for research, business or academic purpose
As we have mentioned earlier, infographics are time-consuming and require some premium tools to make. But there is some free software that is even online, which can help to build a decent infographic.
Adobe Spark
It is a design tool that allows creating posters, webpage and videos using computer or iOS devices. It is very simple to use, and any newbie can master it on the first day. They have professional templates to create posters and flyers with no effort at all.
BeFunky
It has a photo editor, a college, and a means of creating infographics. You can find different types of templates and change them using images and symbols of your choice. With this tool, you can sort any text in any size and color of your choice. Once the infographics are created, you can save, download and use them from any website or any other medium.
Visme
Visme is widely used to make presentations through their presentation templates. However, it has a special tool for infographics. It’s a free tool and has over 100 fonts, lots of pictures, and symbols. It can also create visuals and add words to it.
Snappa
Although Snappa is a graphics design tool, it can be used to create infographics for free. For those who can’t design, this is a great tool. You can create nice infographics in 10 minutes using this tool. Through Snappa, you can download any infographics five times a month. However, if you upgrade by paying, you can download an unlimited infographic that you make.
Canva is a powerful and easy online site through which anyone from a different level of experience or even no experience can work. Further, it has a huge collection of images, icons, and fonts. From here you can choose the one you like. Moreover, it also has paid elements starting from $1.
Google Chart
Google chart is easy to use and free. It allows you to have different types of charts and different types of presets that you can match with your website. Google Chart is one of the best choices for anyone to create the easiest infographics.
Infogram
Infogram is a great tool that allows you to create a unique infographic. It contains charts and maps. Furthermore, there is also the facility to add pictures and videos. This tool will convert your input information into an infographic of different designs, which will accurately represent your information. Moreover, you can share the infographics on social media in addition to downloading.
Piktochart
Piktochart is a tool that can create infographics with just a few clicks. The color and font can be changed very easily. Graphics, basic shapes, and pictures are preloaded that can help create a visually informative image.
Source: United News of Bangladesh