Infographics are a powerful way of communicating information since they combine data and visual images, thereby making it easier to digest, remember and share information. The term infographic has quite popular in the last few years, as you may see in this chart. What infographics tools do you use to produce your own content?

The power of infographics and infographics tools
This chart shows the volume of internet searches for the term “infographic”

But infographics have been around for a long time. One of the oldest historical records in modern times of an infographic dates back to 1626 when Christoph Schneier published an infographic about the rotation of the sun in his book Rosa Ursina sive Sol. Since then, several people, such as Charles Joseph Minard (in the 1860’s) and Edward Tufte (in the late 90’s), have researched and developed theory around data visualization.

But what makes a good infographic? In this article, infogr.am explored the idea quite nicely. We will also add a few infographics tools that can help you create infographics.

Know the power of infographics, or why infographics are so powerful

An infographic is a visual representations of data. One of the beauties of infographics is that they allow the publisher to present rational information in a visual way, thereby increasing its likelihood of being remembered.

It kind of use different ways of understanding content in the same piece of image. Some say it “connects” the rational and abstract brain regions. Cut this shit of left/right brain, it simples does not work this way. Your brain is divided into four lobes: frontal, parietal, occipital and temporal. The frontal lobe is responsible for what we normally understand as “rational” activities: logic, planning, problem-solving, short-term memory and pattern recognition among others. This is also the part of the brain you use to process complex quantitative information.

The occipital lobe, in the back of your head, has a direct connection to the nerves in your eyes, and is responsible for processing visual information (images). It also connects visual stimuli to images stored in your long-term memory. This is why many people find it easier to remember information when they link it with a mental image. Cool, isn’t it?

infographics tools

Online infographics tools

There are several infographics tools out there that you can use for free or at a low price to create effective infographics. However, if you are looking for something specific for health and life sciences, we must say that Mind the Graph is what you need.

The infographics tools below can all be used together with Mind the Graph, because they do not have the scientific illustrations and medical art you need. We also use some of them, although we prefer professional infographic software to create infographics for our clients.

Mind the Graph is an infographic maker that provide you life science illustrations and medical art to create infographics for Life Science and Health. The best part is the connect is beautiful and harmonic. You can also create your charts with Mind the Graph infographic maker and start from one of the useful infographic templates for inspiration.

The power of infographics and infographics tools
Mind the Graph: infographic maker for Life Science and Health

Cool data visualization tools

Infogr.am

Infogr.am provides an easy way to generate beautiful and interactive charts and infographics, that can easily be embedded on blogs, websites, and social media. Responsive design makes them look exactly as intended across devices, while the native interactivity helps boost audience engagement. Infogr.am is free to use but Pro, Business and Enterprise accounts allow you to download and print charts, plug-in live data feeds and use your own logo.

Tableau is a powerful analytics tool. If you’re working with complex data, or want to create sophisticated visualizations, this might be a good tool for you. The downside is that the learning curve is somewhat steep and their infographics are not responsive. They have a free version, but if you want the see the full power off the product you’ll need to use the paid version.

CartoDB lets you create amazing maps, that are easy to share and embed. They are interactive and you can get started in minutes. You can filter and slice the data right there, helping you explore and and refine large amounts of data. CartoDB is free and has a paid enterprise version.infographics tools

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