Infographics have become somewhat of a common theme on the modern web.
We are a population obsessed with statistics and therefore lap up infographics like kittens on milk, so what is it that makes them so appealing?
Infographics, or data visualisations, if you’d prefer, work so well because they appeal the needs of the average web user – they’re informative, fun, visually pleasing, digestible and have great ‘shareability’, just how online content should be.
There’s rarely a day goes by when an infographic of some description doesn’t grace in our inbox, Twitter stream or RSS feed so it’s no wonder they’re flavour of the month in marketing land – they are essentially ‘the perfect link bait’.
So popular are infographics that they now even have their own community site in the form of visual.ly. The site launched earlier this week and has hopes of becoming “The world’s largest community for exploring, sharing, creating, and promoting data visualizations”.
The site does exactly as it says on the tin and is a great time waster for the infographic fans among us. Not surprisingly there’s a lot of social and online marketing focused content, which can come in extremely useful when looking for data, inspiring blog posts or communicating ideas with clients.
The site is also a great place for designers to showcase their design skills and originality.
Here’s one of our personal favourites:
(click to enlarge)