An infographic is one of the best ways to communicate content in a visually pleasing, educational manner. When done correctly, infographics grab the audience’s attention and make them want to learn about the content within. They often make otherwise boring content interesting and inviting to the public.

Creating a great infographic is not the easiest thing, especially for new designers, so here are 4 tips for creating killer infographics.

Know the audience

Just like every design project you do, your first task is to know the audience. Who will be viewing your infographic? That is what defines the style and design elements of the project. A common issue with infographics is that they are designed for the general public instead of a specific audience. Each audience expects something different in each infographic; someone interested in sports will want a different infographic than someone interested in the newest pharmaceutical trends.

Know the content

The content in an infographic is ultimately the message that you, as the designer, are trying to get across to the audience. It is crucial, therefore, read and understand the information the infographic is being based on. You simply won't be able to portray it effectively if you don’t understand it yourself. The content is also the defining piece in which graphics you choose and how you link them together.

Perhaps the most important piece of content is the title – and creating a great title requires knowing the content.

Keep it simple and easy to read

To keep the audience's attention, an infographic must be simple and visually pleasing. If no one wants to look at it, they definitely won't want to read it. Also, an infographic should only focus on a single topic, allowing the audience to get the gist with no more than a minute of scanning the piece. Don't throw extraneous information at the audience, as it will only confuse them in regards to the infographic's purpose. If you have another topic, make another infographic.

Utilize the white space

White space is your friend, so use it! The worst thing about an infographic is clutter. The point of an infographic is to simplify the content and make it easier to look at and understand, and a cluttered infographic is both difficult to read and confusing. The flow of content and where to read next should be obvious.

Research shows that infographics increase people's willingness to read a piece of content by 80%; in addition, people typically recall 10% of what they read or hear versus 65% of content that is paired with a relevant image. (Find these, and more, statistics about infographics here.)