Interactive Inforgraphics and Venngage

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.

Infographic Proposal

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

Thinking Like a Designer

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.

Possible Clients

This week begins with brainstorming potential clients for an infographic. Infographics are definitely an effective method to efficiently get data or marketing across to the reader. After giving it some  thought, I figured out three clients that I would enjoy making an infographic for:  Yoobi, the EPA, and IMAN Chicago.

Yoobi is an amazing company that sells colorful school supplies. The name YooBi means "one for you, and one for me" which pretty much sums up the company mission. For every item sold, Yoobi donates an item to a classroom in the US. I have a few Yoobi highlighters and pens I bought (and love) from Target a while back. However, I only recently realized the company has this charitable side. Therefore, I would really enjoy making the company an infographic that would help them better market their products. This way, customers can better understand how Yoobi provides something more meaningful than just supplies.

The next group I would like to advertise for is the EPA. The Environmental Protective Agency is currently being largely defunded. In addition, the head of the current EPA is not someone who believes in climate change. I would like to help scientists and the department of government out in creating infographics using raw, nonpartisan data from around the world. I'd like to make them simple and straightforward enough to get the message across to the congress (and all our citizens). Hopefully, then there can be no disputes in the unfortunately controversial subject.

Lastly, I think it would be helpful to make an infographic for IMAN Chicago. The Intercity Muslim Action Network is a nonprofit organization that is based in the south side of Chicago. This organization focuses on community, the arts, and activism. I currently am volunteering with IMAN in a larger campaign to address the food desert the south side is currently in. There is little to no access to fresh produce or substantial groceries. IMAN is working with the corner stores within the south side to bring produce and healthy items into the community. I would like to put the data we collect into an infographic. I think many types of people can benefit from this. This can be a method of advertisement to garner more volunteers and outside donations. Additionally,  this data will serve as a means to bring more corner stores into the initiative and possible support from the local city and town government.

Below is my Hubspot inforgraphic pdf file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bx_2xqC-z85XbV9hYW5ONjhaZFE/view?usp=sharing

Piktochart Infographic Remake

This week I recreated my first infographic using Piktochart. I actually really enjoyed using the software and would possibly consider it my favorite thus far. I used the website once before in highschool to make event fliers, so I was already quite familiar with it. The interface is so simple to use and maneuver. There is no lagging and there are plenty of options to choose from. I really love the picture frame options (and all the free photos). The frames are an effortless way to make the infographic look clean, unique, and still professional.

Some text frames, backgrounds, and pictures are not as personalizable as I would have liked. The colors and dimensions are typically preset and so an element of customization is lost. I do not like the Piktochart watermark at the bottom of the PNG that can only be removed once upgraded. While there are few templates that are free, the upgraded templates are still viewable and serve as inspiration. 

The site does remind me of Canva, however, Canva had more free templates but limited backgrounds, pictures, and icons. This made making a completely free infographic quite difficult on Canva, but relatively straightforward on Piktochart. The tool option sets Piktochart apart from both Canva and Powerpoint because it makes adding graphs, maps, and videos very easy. The graph feature stood out because some graph options including the doughnut, stack venn, and the icon matrix are unique to Piktochart (that even excel doesn't support).

I chose to remake my first infographic entitled, "The Good and Bad of Having Your Own Business". Firstly, inorder to truly declutter, I decided to change my topic to only benefits instead of both pros and cons. Then, I added some fun information to provide a short background to the topic. While the graph and photo frame are extra, I do not think they clutter the infographic, but rather add visual enhancement. In particular, I utilized the principles of similarity and enclosure. The colors and fonts coordinate throughout and provide harmony and uniformity to the infographic, something the original version lacked. Also, the remake has adequate white space that helped balance it as well.

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.