Five years ago, “infographic” wasn’t even a word. Now, sharable, clickable, interactive infographics are one of the cornerstones of a successful online marketing campaign, and there are dozens of ways to create them.
Whether you want to make graphics to supplement a robust blog post or if you need something concrete to attach to a marketing pitch, try one of these great tools for Creating Infographics without an art degree.
Infogr.com
Still the gold standard in FREE infographic services, Infogr.com offers all the features a novice could need. Not only is it great with spreadsheets and CSVs, but it also allows you to create a multitude of charts that Who can use in business presentations. Infogr.com makes it easier than most infographic creators to download your graphic into PDF format, making it easy to email and embed on your website.
Visual.ly
Visual.ly is a great program if you’re working with a lot of data. Maps and charts are the Visual.ly specialties, and you can even create a data-rich video, too. You can easily create a limited number of free infographics here with some standard templates, but if you’re willing to pay the nominal fee to upgrade, you’ll be impressed with all the options.
Piktochart
Piktochart is the kind of graphic maker you need if you’re a blogger or want to make something pretty, not display thousands of points of data. Its designs are colorful and cartoonish but delightfully sharable. The service costs about $30 a month, but it’s one of the largest infographic communities on the web right now.
TimelineJS
It doesn’t have many extra features, but TimelineJS is the perfect tool for creating a timeline, particularly for your business. All you have to do is upload your data in a Google spreadsheet and, viola, timeline! It links up to Youtube, Flickr, Twitter and other social sites so you can share the graphic you create seamlessly.
InfoActive
If you have data that’s constantly changing, you need to check out this platform. Not only are InfoActive’s designs super mobile-friendly, but they’re also able to be embedded with live data. It’s not a free service (once the Beta period is over), but this simple service is the first place to look if you need professional, dynamic graphics.
Present.me
Not exactly an infographic tool, Present.me is one of the coolest design tools in presentations. You can record yourself talking next to slides of data, pictures, or even charts which makes for an extremely professional video when it’s all said and done. It’s something different, which is half the battle.
Many Eyes
The folks at IBM are experimenting with the Many Eyes software, figuring out the best way to display all different kinds of data. Essentially, you upload the data have in. CSV format and the program offer you several suggestions for displaying it: from maps to charts to line graphs. That way, you can decide before you put in time and effort which infographic setup works best for what you had in mind.
Tableau Public
Tableau Public is a fantastic free desktop application for creating infographics for the Windows user who’s always left out of the app wars. There’s an active community in which to try out your graphic (from maps to charts) before it goes live, and once you’re happy with the result, you can imbed the image right onto your webpage with just a few clicks.
Tagxedo
Word clouds are hit-miss – sometimes they seem to just be taking up space. But Tagxedo’s bridged the gap between visually interesting and informational and allows users to create a word cloud from any document that looks like something interesting. For example, you can create a word cloud of the Gettysburg Address text to look like Abraham Lincoln’s profile. How cool is that?
Also Read: How to Edit Secured PDF
Creating infographics can be time consuming, but it’s well worth it if your content gets shared. All you need to get started is a little data, a lot of determination, and the perfect infographic design tool to make it all a reality.
