This week I decided to make a new infographic on coffee using a new program, Venngage. The interface is reminiscent of Canva. I enjoyed making the infographic as there were a variety of options to choose from. The charts feature is superior to Canva and Piktochart. It offers a larger variety of options including word clouds, icon percentage charts, tree maps, and cloud bubbles. Also, these charts are considerably customizable and interactive. There were plentiful icons to choose from and even maps that can be added. Venngage, however, only provides limited image, image frames, and text options. Besides this major downside, it was still relatively easy to make a full fledged free infographic. Apparently only premium members can download their work. Therefore, I am only able to show the infographic I made below because I used my snipping tool.
I used 3 separate colored panels at an attempt at storytelling. However, I am unsure if I did it correctly. An interactive infographic would further engage the reader. In order to do this some additions could be, a map that can zoom in on countries, providing details when clicked. Additionally, with each country clicked, the coffee bean could change percentages corresponding to which type of bean Arabic or Robusta is grown there. It would be pretty cool if the image frames could hold multiple pictures that would rotate almost like a GIF. Most of the charts in Venngage are interactive. They can be clicked and unclicked to allow micro-comparisons. This makes the digital inforgraphic experience more rich.
Client: Yoobi
Products: School Supplies
Purpose: Marketing; provide a visual summary of the company’s mission
Problem: Currently lacking a concise, effective advertisement that can inform potential customers about the meaning behind Yoobi products
Infographic Layout:
The infographic would be divided into 4 parts: Quick Facts, What We Give, How We Give, and How You Can Help.
- Quick Facts:
- Yoobi Logo with Phrase meaning: “One for you one for me”
- $485 is the average amount of money a teacher pays (out of pocket) on essential school supplies.
- 99% of teachers spend their own money on essential classroom materials.
- In total, KG-12th grade teachers spend 1.6B a year on school supplies.
- What We Give:
- Yoobi Classroom pack
- Contains 425 core learning tools, for 30 students, completely free
- Provide Picture with details
- How We Give:
- Company works with partner: Kids in Need Foundation
- Donates, then KINF distributes
- Provides supplies to younger kids who are in the greatest need for supplies and typically to schools in high poverty areas (Areas with large number of students who qualify for NSLP).
- Provide map visual presenting where Yoobi focuses supplies
- How You Can Help:
- Places to purchase Yoobi Products
- Target, Amazon, Retail. And Yoobi.com
Chapter 5 is entitled "Thinking Like a Designer". The reading was simple enough but contained an interesting perspective. The first concept is afforadances which are aspects of design that show how an object functions and it is to be used. Highlighting or focusing on the relevant information is one way to achieve this. Highlighting can be done by using bold, italics, underlining, cafe, typeface, specific colors, inversing elements, or size. Another way is to eliminate distractions is by identifying unnecessary information by seeing if it truly pertains to the topic at hand. Additionally, creating a clear visual hierarchy of info can help in labeling and organizing info so the data is best communicated (ie. super-catagories and scatter plots).
Accessibility or the concept that designs should be understood and used in different ways by different people. To achieve accessibility a good idea to to not over complicate the design by using easy fonts, keeping it clean, using few words, and simple language. Also, thoughtful use of text is important in titles, labels, and text notes.
The next concept is aesthetics or the idea that appearance of data matters. To be visually smart use appropriate colors, pay attention to alignment, and do not overcrowd but use white space to an advantage.
Lastly, acceptance, which deals with how it is understood by others or its effectiveness. To gain acceptance, provide multiple options and seek input, show designs side by side, and get someone to be both critical and vocal about the designs created.
Yoobi Infographic Idea: Marketing
On the supplies company, Yoobis's, site there is a short impact report that briefly describes the company's mission in providing supplies to schools in America through every purchase of their products. I would like to make an inforgraphic to create a visual summary of this report. The infographic would be divided into three parts: What We Give, Where We Give, and How You Can Help. This way there is a flow in the ideas that can be easily processed by the audience.
Iman Chicago Idea: Data
I would like to create an infographic that entails the internal data that we collect through corner shop visits. This data contains the demographics of people visits, what is being sold, and concerns and expectations of customers. Using a scatter plot to effectively display satisfaction levels would be a good idea. In addition, using the concept of accessibility to make the inforgraphic usable by all not only volunteers but public officials and donors would be a goal as well.
