Infographics

Infographics

I was excited to see infographics as a module topic, as I am quite familiar with them myself.  I taught 5th and 6th grade GT students for years and incorporated infographics into my lessons and product choices every chance I got.  While my students got to explore infographic sites quite a bit to produce their work, my role was more of a facilitator in the process.  I wanted to try my hand at making them more myself but did not really have the chance to until now.  Due to my exposure to infographics ahead of this module, I had a mild working knowledge of Piktochart and Ease.ly.  I was a bit disappointed to see that my favorite graphics design site, Canva, was not one of the project exploration sites.  It has a section for infographics as well and is super easy to use, but I enjoyed exploring the assigned sites altogether.  I ultimately chose Easel.ly, because it seemed like the quickest interface to learn with its basic editor.  Even though I used Easel.ly, Infogram would be my choice for the best option overall due to the wide variety of free content it offers and the editing menu’s ease of use. 

Piktochart

• PRO: There is a user-friendly editing menu on the left side.

• PRO: There is a wide variety of free backgrounds.

• PRO: It has an easy to use “blank” infographic where you can create one from scratch. 

• PRO: The editor allows you to add “design components” and “tools”, such as timelines, lists, bar graphs, videos, etc.  This is great, because it gives you a basic layout you can customize. 

• CON: There are not many free design elements available, such as clipart, icons, illustrations, etc.  

Easel.ly

• PRO: The interface is user-friendly.

• PRO: There are quite a few ready-made templates you can use. 

• PRO: The templates are visually engaging and feel “current”. 

• PRO: There are community infographics where other users share templates they’ve made that you can edit. 

• PRO: You have the option to meet with a graphic designer for help on how to make your infographic better for free. 

• CON: Nearly everything you see is only accessible to paid accounts.  The free account doesn’t give the user much access to what they offer. 

• CON: There are not many options of visual elements to add. 

Infogram

• PRO: There is a plethora of templates to choose from.

• PRO: All templates are categorized by type, which makes it easy to find what you are looking for. 

• PRO: There are templates for maps, which I didn’t see on the other sites. 

• PRO: It allows you to seamlessly incorporate content from outside sites like Youtube or Google Drive onto the infographic.

• CON: It could use more selection when it comes to graphics and icons.  

To view the infographic I created on Easel.ly, please use the link below.  The data is based on information gathered from the Pew Research Center on how American adults used the internet during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.  Pew Research Center is an excellent resource to utilize for research in your library.      

https://www.easel.ly/browserEasel/13060807 

My infographic was created with a template from Easel.ly.  The data used was gathered from this Pew Research Center article:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/30/from-virtual-parties-to-ordering-food-how-americans-are-using-the-internet-during-covid-19/ 

Create infographics & online charts - Infogram. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2021, from https://infogram.com/

Create Infographics, Presentations & Flyers | Piktochart. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2021, from https://piktochart.com/ 

Easel.ly | create and share visual ideas using infographics. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2021, from https://www.easel.ly/auth/login