Information + Graphic

An infographic is a representation of information/knowledge in a graphic format designed to make the data easily and instantly understandable.

Simply put, when you see a graphic and understand what it means at first glance, you're probably looking at an infographic. Just like the one below for instance :

The moment you see the above picture you know you want to drive carefully.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Infographics are used to quickly communicate a message, to simplify the presentation of large amounts of data... Infographics help see patterns and relationships between data.

If you pay attention you'll see infographics all around you, starting with traffic signs =). But there are more such as subway maps, musical scores or even weather charts. The possibilites are endless and there's a reason for it : infographics are very very efficient !

A Large Variety of Infographics

Infographics include reports, posters, presentations, graphs, charts, maps...

There are so many types of infographics that just within the "charts" type you'll find sub categories such as : "vertical bars", "triangle bars", "horizontal bars", "lines", "areas", "dots", "pies", "stacked venn", "icon matrix", "gradient hierarchy", "gauge", "doughnut", "swatch" and "progress bar"... Here's a example below (vertical bars chart)