Effective Visuals

This week I created an infographic using Hubspot's free templates. This method was slightly easier than Canva because I am more familiar with using Microsoft Powerpoint. I chose the Tree Facts template and altered it to better suite my topic. The colors were similar as I kept the general feel the original template had. 
In terms of visual effectiveness, I placed the facts along the stem. I hope this made the graphic pleasing and easier to read. Overall, I do think power point is another fun tool for making straightforward infographics. Also, I saved the slide as a png file in order to upload it here.

I Like Pretty Graphs" Video Review

This week, the video"I Like Pretty Graphs: Best Practices for Data Visualization Assignments" by UWDesignLab proved to be quite insightful. Overall, the teaching style was very concise, there was not a massive amount of information to take in and the information given was broken down into various categories and points. I particularly liked how there were two narrators speaking. It helped keep me engaged as it almost felt like a discussion between friends on a podcast verses a monotonous lecture. Also, the teachers' use of plentiful examples not only demonstrated what they were speaking about but also reinforced their key points in my head.

Their focal breakdown of the Basics of Graphic Design into 4 Goals, 3 Building Blocks, Principles of Effective Design, and Manipulating Visual Elements was particularly effective. The Basic Building Blocks, divided into visual elements, typography, and space, provide a basis for understanding what infographics contain. The slides and breakdowns he provided may be slightly oversimplified, but I do no think of it as a vice since it is easier for me to retain and refer back to information when simplified.They provided websites to utilize like colorschemedesigner.com and typeconnection.com. I definitely appreciate these references because they are tools that will help in the future.

Interestingly, many of the example infographics they show do not have titles. Just something that I noticed, but I suppose the visuals really try to speak for themselves (and are not dependent on the explanation a title provides). That being said, some other examples of infographics seemed very confusing with strong contrasting colors, shapes, and overcrowding. It made me wonder if the visuals really made the data easier to read, given it was taking me just as long to decode the message the author was trying to get across. The Left verses Right graphic and the Generic Names of Soft Drinks by County graphic are two examples that I felt this way about. They left me agitated trying to figure out what was going on. In addition, the last 15 minutes got pretty dry and flat as they lost momentum and lacked visuals. However, overall I think the video was a nice introduction into a larger study.


I included an infographic I liked from the website dailyinfographic.com, a website the two guys recommend to check out.

Infographic: The Good and Bad of Having Your Own Business

The infographic above was made through the website canva.com. The site makes designing effortless. There are many infographic layouts to draw inspiration from. The process involves choosing a premade design and altering it to suit my topic and style. I divided it into 4 parts of good and bad pairs. I added a graphic for each in order to fill the negative space and make the graphic more visually appealing. There are many font options and layouts that the site provides.

The only portion I had difficulty with was the editing interface. The undo option does not work at times. Also, I found straight alignment is difficult to achieve. In addition, most of the graphics I searched for were not free. Although they only cost $1, it was not easy making the infographic completely free. Overall, I enjoyed the experience and would use the site in the future. 

The site I used for reference is http://fortune.com/2014/07/02/what-are-the-best-and-worst-parts-about-starting-your-own-business/?iid=sr-link1