Infographs – Examples – Future

An Infograph is an extraordinary way to tell a story with one picture. Van Gogh did it some hundred years ago and cave man did it many thousand years ago. But every major shift in our society brings new ways to tell even more of a story for an even bigger audience in just one picture – AND – infographs can be done by everybody. I had infographs in my text books – but back then it was rare.

Infograph is the art of telling a story in just one picture – and enable everybody to do so. It is NOT just a new way of drawing a flow chart, not just graphics, not just report data not just explanations – it's all together and it's more attractive.

Great Examples:

Click on the image to find the source / author / creator of the graph

Creating them

It's still lots of hard work. We actually believe we need three people for one excellent graph:

A graphic designer

The person who can express a thought, a scenario and make it visually attractive, compelling and memorable. Probably somebody who can draw but is not necessarily a data expert or story teller.

A number crunchier

The person who aggregated all the numbers, dissects situations, extract important data and brings them to a meaningful set of information. Probably somebody who nows data and correlation, less likely an artist or a story teller.

A story teller

Somebody who is able to reduce the essence of a situation into a short and interesting story. Somebody who understands how others learn and absorb knowledge. Probably somebody who is less likely an artist and less likely a data junky.

Each of the talents has something the other just don't – but today, we can collaborate only,m instantly  ;)

Where are we today?

- I guess at ground zero.
- What I believe? – It's the best way to communicate a story on one page
- Where it will go? No idea – maybe do what a PPT presentation did on 25 slides in one picture and use the 45 minute presentation to explain the thought of that one picture on 10 minutes.
- What will change? You remember that one picture – you never remember 25 slides

What I write here – would be a great infograph – but I'm neither the data guy nor the artist.