Creating Meaningful Infographics

I have always been a visual learner and became an immediate "infographic fan" when they became popular a few years ago. I like to write in bullet points instead of paragraphs and I like to draw pictures to represent words so this tool for information is the best of both worlds. I have a subscription to Canva and have found that for most purposes it has been a great resource for infographic templates and tools. Trying my hand at a few new web applications to create an infographic gave me a chance to see if there is something out there that is better than Canva. However, I must say that I am a creature of habit and like to stay in my comfort zone so there was a learning curve when I was trying to work through the websites. Here is my take on the three sites that offer free subscriptions for creating infographics. 

Piktochart: Out of the three sites, this one was my favorite. Maybe because it most closely resembled Canva?! Infographics, Presentations, Posters, Reports, Flyers, and Social Media posts are all available on the left side menu. In addition, there is a collaboration tool for a Team Template for collaboration. The free version of Piktochart does not allow this team option and some of the graphics, photos, and options are limited. In addition, the free version only allows 5 saved visuals. Downloading the visual as .png is the only option unless you level up to a paid version.

Infogram: This site has a ton of options for interactive charts, graphs, presentations and infographics. As with other sites, it offers more when you upgrade to a paid subscription. Downloading images for sharing and uploading to documents is not available for the free option. It is extremely user friendly and has great themes and layouts. Users at any level of technology knowledge should be comfortable with the site.

Easel.ly: Was very easy to use and tour the features when creating infographics. This site includes webinars and tutorials to help users create high quality documents. Like the other sites, a paid version gives you access to more features and collaborative options. Also, the site offers designers to create your product if you desire a professional touch. One plus is that Easel.ly integrates with Google classroom. This would be a great feature for schools that use Google. 

I created this infographic using Piktochart after I chose an appropriate template. Replacing the words with information from the article and using my own charts and images, I was able to create a visual that is informative with attractive visuals. (It is difficult to see the text in the infographic when downloaded as a single png so I also downloaded each individual block of the infographic to be able to see the information as single images.)