Cool Infographics

The Social Brand Value of the World's Leading Brands

2012-02-13T12:00:58Z

The Social Brand Value of the World’s Leading Brands infographic from Sociagility.

In November 2011, we looked at the social brand value of 50 of the world’s leading brands, creating a revised top 50 ranking according to their social media performance, as measured by our PRINT Index™ KPI.

The PRINT system compares brands on five key dimensions or ‘attributes’ of social media performance – popularity, receptiveness, interaction, network reach and trust – across multiple platforms. The Sociagility Top 50 report analyses the social brand value of the world’s leading brands and the competitive influences that determine their social media performance. Here’s a visual representation of just some of the report highlights.

I really both the topic, and the design of this infographic. The color are bright, and appealing. In the Top 20 Brand Leaders, I suggest that using the actual brand logos would have made the bar chart easier to understand. It’s interesting that beyond the first section, the actual values aren’t shown along with the visualizations. I really like the circles comparison of the three attributes of each brand.

Also, “Legends are Evil”. The color coding by market is at least a secondary level of data, but the legend still makes the read work harder by looking back-and-forth to understand the meaning behind the colors. It’s even harder as you move down the infographic, because the color coding continues, but the legend is way up near the top. You could put icons or the text into the color bars themselves, and the reader would figure out the color coding scheme.

At the bottom, a copyright and the URL of the original infographic would make it easier for readers to find the original posting. Some credit to the designer would be nice as well.

Found on DR4WARD.

What's In Your Trash?

2012-02-10T12:01:01Z

The What’s In Your Trash infographic explores what constitutes trash in America. From Bolt Insurance, this design breaks down all of the stuff we throw away.

The cleaning services industry brings in more than $50 billion a year, from janitorial services to residential cleaning agencies, and the industry is projected to continue growing. Americans generated more than 250 tons of garbage in 2010. In BOLT’s What’s In Your Trash infographic, find out what is really in your trash and how important cleaning services and janitorial services are. Through recycling and waste incineration, as much as 90% of waste can bypass the landfill! Presented as an infographic (created for BOLT by Infographic World) to help you more easily visualize and retain this important information.

Although there is a lot of text here that could have been visualized (big fonts aren’t a data visualization), I really like the doughnut segments split apart to show different components of the trash. It helps tell the story and lead the reader through the information top-to-bottom of the design.

Thanks to Jane for sending in the link!

The Definitive Cocktails Poster

2012-02-09T14:45:22Z

The Constitution of Classic Cocktails is a cool new poster from Pop Chart Lab. Available in print for $36, this is a 27”x39” poster.

This definitive guide to classic cocktails breaks down 68 drinks into their constituent parts. Follow the lines to see where spirits, mixers, and garnishes intersect to form delightful concoctions. This massive movie poster-sized print contains over 40 types of alcohol (from distilled spirits to bitters), mixers from raspberry syrup to egg white, and garnishes from the classic olive to a salted rim. This obsessively detailed chart also includes the ratios for each drink, as well as the proper serving glass, making it as functional as it is beautiful. Over a year in the making, this is Pop Chart Lab’s most elaborate chart ever.

I love the circular design, with radial connections between the different alcohol types in the center and the mixed drinks around the perimeter. I find it easier to start in the center, and figure out which drinks you can make with that alcohol. They show the different shapes of glassware for cocktails across the bottom, and use those icons to show which glass should be used with each drink.

Pop Chart Lab also posted a fabulous, behind-the-scenes article on FastCoDesign about the process they went through during the design development. Check out The Only Chart You Need To Mix A Proper Cocktail to see the early concepts and the different stages the design went through.

Found on Chart Porn.

Client Infographic: Hotels.com Romance Survey

2012-02-08T14:08:30Z

Hotels.com has released two Romance Survey infographics that share their own research behind romance and Valentine’s Day. Designed by InfoNewt with designer Jeremy Yingling, the two versions cover research data both the U.S. and Canada.

Pack your bags, Sweetie Pie, we’re going on a romantic getaway! We surveyed guys and gals of different ages who shared their secret dreams about the perfect romantic weekend. Here’s how our lovebirds responded.

It’s fun, timely information that has a long Online Lifespan (won’t change over time), so the infographics will be relevant for years. There was a lot of survey data, and I really like how the final result mixes up different ways to look at the aggregate data by also using the available demographics to show findings by age and gender.

I was impressed with the chivalry shown by 58% of men (both in the U.S. and Canada) that feel they need to plan and pay for a romantic Valentine’s date.

Thanks to the Hotels.com team for being great to work with!

Infographic Events Calendar 2011-2012

2012-02-06T12:00:43Z

Outstanding calendar-map infographic from Infographer.ru, a Russian infographics site and design agency in Moscow (view in English). The Infographic Events Calendar 2011-2012 shows many (but not all) visualization, data and infographic conferences and events around the globe.

For everyone who is interested in information design we prepared the events calendar. We found over 44 conferences and workshops, dedicated to infographics and visualization topic all over the world.

The idea to make this kind of ‘map-calendar’ of events appeared in our mind a long time ago, we started to collect data in 2011 and suddenly 2012 started. So we decided to combine both years and show the history for 2011 and actual events for 2012, which you can use for your personal planning.

They collected over 40 conferences and workshops dedicated to information visualization for last year and the upcoming schedule for 2012. The calendar-map color codes the events by month and obviously connects them to the correct location on the world map.

If you know any corrections or additions to the event included, please post them in the comments! I know they will be reading them, and would welcome all feedback. Here are a few events I think they should add to their list:

South by Southwest Interactive, Austin, TX, March 9-13, 2012
TDWI World Conference (Tableau), Las Vegas, NV, February 13-15, 2012
Big Data 2012, Paris, France, March 20-21, 2012

I like the text of the city name included in the connecting lines, and the months with no events are gray so they don’t add to the visual noise of the bright colors. Somewhere on the design they should have included the URL for people to find their original posting. When this get shared online, readers will have a hard time finding the original site.

Infographer also posted some behind-the-scenes information about the development of the design. Check out their early drafts in the complete blog post.

Thanks to Irina for sending in the link and posting the English translation of the development process!

The Psychology of Color

2012-01-31T14:33:17Z

The Psychology of Color is a cool infographic from CertaPro Painters of Louisville.

This new infographic from CertaPro Painters of Louisville shows how color evokes emotion and triggers your senses. It beautifully explores colors that should and should not be used in interior decorating, as well as why certain colors are used in advertising.

Designed by NowSourcing.com, I love the visual appeal of this design. Obviously, it’s bright and colorful, but in all three sections of the layout (home, colors and advertising) they provide visual examples to back up their observations about different colors. I would love to have a house that colorful!

There is much more information on this subject, but this design also kept the information fairly simple and straightforward. The colors make the design very “busy”, but the design doesn’t try to communicate too much information to the reader.

The design is missing the URL to find the original landing page, and a copyright statement. I also found it odd that they needed to clarify that M&Ms are “an American Chocolate Candy”. Aren’t M&Ms an international brand?

Thanks to Jay for sending in the link! Also found on Infographic Journal.

Client Infographic: Top 20 Medical Records Software Solutions

2012-01-30T14:40:14Z

A new infographic design from InfoNewt for Capterra. Top 20 Most Popular EMR (Electronic Medical Records) Software Solutions shows the results of comparing Capterra’s Popularity calculations in the EMR software category.

As the deadline for implementation in the U.S. draws near, talk of electronic medical records (EMR) and electronic health records (EHR) software is a hot topic at the doctor’s office lately. These systems assist medical practitioners in the creation, storage, and organization of electronic medical records, including patient charts, electronic prescriptions, lab orders, and evaluations (just to name a few common features). While the terms “EMR” and “EHR” are often used interchangeably, EMR solutions allow for patient information to be shared within one health care organization, whereas EHR solutions allow for health-related records to be shared across multiple organizations. Below is a look at some of the most popular options in both categories, but to see a comprehensive list, visit our EMR Software Directory. You can also click on any of the company logos in the graphic to go directly to their websites.

Capterra’s listing current shows 324 EMR software solutions, and for their target audience this is a very hot topic with an upcoming Federal requirement in the U.S. to make all medical records electronic by 2014. This is a HUGE issue to convert millions of patient records over the next few years, and practitioners obviously only want to do this once, so picking the right platform up front is critical!

Similar to the Top 20 Marketing Automation Software design, this design features a large pie chart as the primary visualization, and then provides additional information. The main data is Capterra’s Popularity calculations which combine total users, customers, revenue, social media followers and website rankings. Again, the specific percantage values weren’t as important as the ranking and visually showing how the packages compare.

This software category has the added complication that the different software packages are written for different sizes of medical organizations. Single medical practitioners don’t need the same software (or have the same budgets) as hospitals. We also added the element of showing which hardware platforms each package is design to use. Microsoft Windows hardware is clearly dominant, but Apple hardware and Cloud-based solutions made up 30% of searches in this category.

Capterra is the authority when it comes to finding software solutions for businesses, and they’ve done some great work gathering data and measuring the relative popularity of different software categories. Although popularity doesn’t necessarily mean the software is right for your business, it is a really good indicator that the solution is working successfully for many businesses and may be worth a closer look. A better indicator than just total revenue or trying to rate “the best.” You can read their comprehensive blog post about the data behind the infographic.

Thanks to the team at Capterra for being great to work with!

Weight of the Union 2.0

2012-01-27T16:09:14Z

From Anytime Fitness has released the Weight of the Union 2.0 infographic to coincide with the U.S. State of the Union Address this week.

Last night, the President gave his State of the Union address to members of Congress and the general citizenry to report that our nation is moving in the right direction. But today we want to address what the President didn’t mention in his speech to the union. We want to discuss our nation’s biggest health concern: obesity. We are offering its own barometer for measuring progress — the second annual report called the “Weight of the Union.”

There’s a lot of data shown in this design, and a good blend of different data visualizations, illustrations and text descriptions.

My biggest complaint is that many of the data points are just listed in text, and they could have been visualized. For example, the dollar values showing that “Being Fat is Expensive”, should have been scaled so they could be easily compared to each other or some outside comparative spending values.

The other major issue I have is the shading of the silhouette as a stacked bar chart doesn’t work accurately. Readers see the “AREA” of the colored sections as being representative of the values. Because of the odd shape, you can’t just color by height. The boots are showing the biggest value “Sleep”, but because that part of the silhouette is narrow, “Work” actually visualizes as a much bigger portion of the whole than the data really shows.

I like the inclusion of the QR Code at the bottom as a promotion tool for Anytime Fitness.

Thanks to Amanda for sending in the link!

The Cool Infographics 2011 Gallery...A Pinterest Experiment

2012-01-24T13:00:10Z

Check out the Cool Infographics 2011 Gallery! I’m trying an experiment using Pinterest to create a one-page, visual gallery of the infographics I post. On this board I have pinned every post from the Cool Infographics blog from last year, and it makes a really nice, visual way to browse through the infographics I have shared. One of the reasons I wanted to play around with Pinterest is that it displays the entire (sometimes very long) infographic, not just a square thumbnail like many galleries.

In general, I keep the 10 most current posts on the front page of the blog. Once they scroll off the front page, of course their traffic and visibility drops off dramatically. I’m looking for a way to create a live, growing gallery of the infographic images so these great examples of design can continue to be easily discovered.

Because infographics is, by definition, a visual media, I think people would be more likely to find examples they like and inspiration for their own type of design if there was a better way to browse. I’m not sure that Pinterest is the answer yet, but it’s certainly worth trying. On the down-side, I haven’t been able to integrate the Pinterest PinIt button into the blog along with the other social sharing buttons. Their button doesn’t seem to work with the Squarespace platform I use for the blog.

I am absolutely looking for feedback, so please leave your thoughts in the comments.

Cheers!

Job Growth at the 100 Best Companies

2012-01-23T19:54:00Z

Designed by Nicolas Rapp, with Anne Vandermey (@Vandermy), Job Growth at the 100 Best Companies is a companion infographic for the Fortune feature article, 100 Best Companies to Work For.

Fat paychecks, sweet perks, fun colleagues, and over 70,000 jobs ready to be filled — these employers offer dream workplaces. Like Google, which reclaims the top spot this year to become a three-time champion. Meet this year’s top 100, network with the winners on LinkedIn, and more.
In the latest issue of Fortune Magazine.

This is a great Bubble Map visualization that shows the reader three different dimension of information: Job growth (or loss), total company employees and total job applications over the course of the last year.

I do wish that all of the bubbles had been identified in the infographic. There are many company bubbles unmarked, but the reader assumes they are a part of the Top 100 list. Just my personal preference, but I would have used the company logos instead of text to identify the bubbles too.

Head over to Nicolas’ site to see the full-size version:

A Visual Guide to Marathon Running

2012-01-20T19:00:18Z

Taking it to the Streets: a Guide to Marathon Running is a cool infographic from CheapSally.com.

As you may already be aware, the number one resolution I made for myself for 2012 was to try my hand at running a half marathon! After some research, I decided to partake in the L.A. Marathon in March, and I have been doing quite a bit to prepare. First and foremost, I put together a handy little marathon training schedule that will help me prepare for the run of my lifetime, I also did tons of research regarding super foods that help sustain energy, and lastly I created this infographic so that all of you can learn a little bit more about what it takes to run a half or full marathon!

A great tactic for the Marketing, the information infographic is being used to draw attention to all of the coupons available on the site related to Dick’s Sporting Goods.

The design starts off slow, with a lot of text that could have been visualized, but gets much better halfway down. I really like the sequence of information that starts with some general information, moves to fears that keeps people from taking up running, then gets into an actual training schedule and finishes with a list of marathons across the country.

The Common Running Injuries section is well done with percentages shown in doughnuts connected to color-coded positions on the runners body. For the non-statistical information, the illustrations are simple and easy to understand.

I love the visual Half-Marathon Training Calendar! Even though these are just stacked bars, the reader can quickly understand a lot about the increasing training regiment required.

I though it finished weak. The banners listing marathons throughout the year should have some visual element to it like silhouettes from the locations, or a map showing them color coded by month. At the bottom, there should be a URL to find the original infographic, a copyright statement to be clear about allowed uses and I always prefer to see the designer listed.

Thanks to Cameron for sending in the link, and I also found it on Infographic Journal.

Geek vs. Nerd: Which Are You?

2012-01-20T12:00:10Z

The Geeks vs. Nerds head-to-head smack-down comes to us from MastersInIT.org.

In the ongoing battle between geek and nerd, one must take sides, but how can this be done without a solid argument for both personas? We here at Masters In IT (a mix of nerds and geeks) decided that it’s time to lay all the cards on the table to determine which is better and answer the question some fear to know: Are you a geek, or a nerd?

A little text-heavy and lighter fare than I normally post, but this one is just fun to read through. There are a handful of stats included, and the doughnut charts and bar charts are easy to understand.

Like many of the infographics I’ve posted lately, it’s missing a URL at the bottom for readers to find the original post, a copyright statement and listing the designer!

Thanks to Gerri for sending in the link! Also found on Infographic Journal, Daily Infographic.

The Manual Photography Cheat Sheet

2012-01-18T14:43:55Z

The Manual Photography Cheat Sheet by Miguel “Mig” Yatco is a very cool infographic for anyone who is ready to move off of Automatic Mode on their camera! Yes, that means you! Quit taking average photos with average settings!

No matter if you shoot with film or digital, understanding of these four aspects of photography are key to taking good shots. I love how each one shows the reader the range of values, the impact of moving along the range to the pcitures and what the actual display looks like in the viewfinder on both Nikon and Canon cameras.

The only thing I would have liked to see was a visualization of the changes to depth of field. How much range is in focus for each aperture setting?

Miguel has prints available on Zazzle.com. You can buy a printed as a poster for $50, or as small as a 4”x6” card to carry around with you. The standard size available is 23”x34.5”, but I wish the standard poster size was 24”x36” to fit in standard poster frames.

Great job Miguel!

Tablet Adoption at Work

2012-01-17T14:25:23Z

The State of Tablet Adoption at Work is a new infographic from VentureBeat.com. It’s interesting that the infographic itself was sponsored by Lenovo and Qualcomm, but included as part of a VentureBeat article. You can find the original version here at TabletsAtWork.com

Since the debut of Apple’s iPad in Jan. 2010, the integration of tablet devices into our lives and work has progressed rapidly — so fast that it’s sometimes hard to put in perspective how quickly got here. The exclusively obtained infographic below breaks down how far workforce adoption of tablet technology has come — and where it’s headed. (The graphic was sponsored by Lenovo and Qualcomm.)

I love the clean, professional design look. I really like the color scheme and the mixed bag of visualization styles; grid of icons, treemap, stacked bar, line chart, etc.

Only a couple of design issues about this one I would improve.

I’m willing to let 16 tablet icons represent 16.1 Million tablets shipped in 2010 (rounding), but why only 144 tablets shown to represent 147.2 Million? That was just the designer wanting a clean, square visual that breaks the actual data visualization.
The line chart showing 134% increase in shipments powered by Android and Windows is way out of scale. It’s visualizing something close to a 900% increase.
At the bottom there should be a copyright statement and the URL to the original infographic landing page so people can find the full high-resolution version.

Found on the Inside Flipboard feed in Flipboard for iPad.

Learning to Love Tennis

2012-01-16T15:58:10Z

Learning to Love Tennis is a cool infographic describing the major changes within the USTA’s rules for kids playing tennis. Designed by Digital Surgeons, the infographic visualizes some the biggest changes like court sizes, raquet sizes and net height. Also, including things like comparing the calorie burn of different sports help show the reader why tennis is such a great sport for kids.

The game of tennis has been scaled for youth play. To date, tennis has been the only major sport without equipment and field of play dimensions specific to children. By introducing smaller and lighter racquets, balls with different compression ratios, lower nets and scaled court sizes, kids can begin playing and competing earlier. Earlier participation and play increases engagement and reduces frustration associated with using adult-sized racquets that kids find clunky and heavy, or court sizes that are simply too large for children to effectively navigate. Far too many of our country’s youth are huddled around the TV or tethered to a video game controller. These new rules provide the means to get kids off the couch and engage in an activity that they can continue for life.

Overall, I really like this design. The style is eye-ctaching and information is laid out in an easy-to-read manner. I like most of the visuals, and there are only a couple things I would change:

The grid of 30 kid icons showing 70% of Kids Quit Sports isn’t accurate. The visual is 22/30 kids , which is 73.3% This type of visual always works better as a grid of 100. Don’t make your readers count icons to figure out what you’re showing them. Rows of 6 are just odd, and tought to understand.
One of the biggest differences is the new balls used by different ages. It would have been nice to visualize the difference in bounce for each ball to help the reader understand.
The Average Height, Stride Comparison and Average Weight is lost in the design, because it’s all text. In an infographic that makes it less important and the reader just skips over that section.
At the bottom should be the URL to the official landing page so readers can find the original infographic.

This is a really huge initialative for the USTA, and the new rules are complicated to understand for parents. An infographic is a fantastic way to simplify their message, and I think this will help them out a lot.

Thanks to Pete for sending in the link!