In this article, I’ll show you how you can create a professional infographic with icons, even if you’re not a designer, and communicate complex facts to your target group.
I have been working as a graphic designer for many years and have already created many infographics for my clients. Icons play a major role in this, as they can overcome language barriers and represent complex things in a single image.
If you want to create an infographic for a presentation, a website or a brochure, for example, you should keep a few basic things in mind. Not every icon library is suitable for use in infographics. In the following I will show you step by step how best to create your infographic.
1. Choose the Medium
You can’t always display an infographic in full size. Sometimes you have a whole slide available in your presentation, sometimes graphics are also reproduced in columns of magazines. You then have to reduce the complexity accordingly and test whether your infographic and the icons work well even when scaled down. A presentation must also be easily recognizable from a distance. Make sure that your infographic and your icons are clearly visible even at a small scale. In the first step, decide which medium your infographic should be designed for and set the appropriate drawing area in your program. From now on, this is your playground for creating your infographic with icons.
2. Reduce complexities
Consider whether you can omit or simplify steps in the process you want to depict. Of course, it makes a difference whether you are creating the infographic for a manual or only want to show the essential process as part of a presentation. Create a flowchart that shows the necessary steps. You can initially represent individual stages with filler words. The next step is to look for suitable icons.
3. Choose the right icons for your infographic.
You can now replace the filler words you wrote down in the previous step with icons. there are various ways of finding the right icon.
Choose an icon that directly symbolizes the word
Car
Choose an icon as a metaphor
Security
It is important that all icons come from the same collection and that they match graphically. This makes your infographic with icons look much more professional and calm for the viewer.
Some icon libraries offer different styles that allow you to emphasize points, similar to bold text, for example. This looks particularly stylish and professional to your target group.
4. Color your infographic with icons
If you are creating the infographic for your company, there are most likely specifications for color usage. In this case, you should color all elements of the infographic according to the corporate design guidelines.
If you have free choice of colors, for example for a lecture at university or at school, you are spoiled for choice when it comes to colors. If you are not a trained designer or expert in color harmony, the following website provide you with great color combinations that go well together. Abobe Color
5. Use an icon library that is suitable for infographics.
Icon libraries have different focuses. Some icon libraries are particularly suitable for integration into websites, others for apps and still others are aimed specifically at graphic designers. It is important to note that you always have a commercial license for the icons if you use your infographic with icons outside the private or educational sector.
IconUncle – Icons for Infographics
IconUncle offers you an icon library specifically for infographics. You can use up to 2,000 icons for your infographics free of charge or purchase a commercial license for over 12,000 SVG icons, which were developed specifically for creating infographics, as they cover a wide range of topics. Learn more
You can find out more about presentations, corporate design and infographics on the blog.
