How to make an infographic

Before any data, before any tool: write the sentence you want a reader to be able to repeat tomorrow. “Renewables now run a third of the grid.” “Our support queue halved after we changed one form.” If you cannot write it, you do not have an infographic yet — you have a topic, and topics make the sheets nobody finishes.

Test: cover the sheet and say the sentence out loud. If somebody would ask “so what?”, keep working on the sentence rather than on the design.

Each one must earn its place by supporting the sentence. Anything that is merely interesting goes in a list for another sheet. Attach the unit, the period and the source to every figure now, while you still remember where it came from — chasing a source two weeks later is how facts quietly get dropped.

Six is a ceiling, not a target. Three strong figures beat six where two are padding.

Dates in order want a timeline. Steps that repeat want a process. Shares of a total want a breakdown. Two named options judged on the same criteria want a comparison. One dominant figure with evidence underneath wants a statistics sheet. Pick from what you have, not from a template you liked the look of.

Each of these has its own page with the rules for it: timeline, process, comparison, statistics.

The first version exists to be argued with. Draw boxes on paper, or generate one — either way, the point is to have something concrete before you have opinions. Most of what you learn in this step is that one of your six facts does not fit, which is worth knowing before you have spent an hour on typography.

This is the step a generator genuinely collapses. It does not do steps one and two for you, and it should not.

Every draft is too long. Cut the second chart, the explanatory sentence under the headline, the third supporting figure and the decorative icon. What is left will look more confident, and it will read faster. If cutting something makes the sheet wrong rather than thinner, put it back — that is the test.

Rule of thumb: if a reader has to look at the sheet twice to understand it, there is still a third to cut.

Does every figure carry its unit and period? Does any percentage lack a base? Is the axis honest? Does colour mean one thing throughout? Is the source on the sheet rather than in the caption? Would somebody hostile to your conclusion find the sheet fair? Read it once at full size and once at thumbnail size, because the second is how most people will meet it.

Print it, or look at it on your phone. Errors that hide on a 27-inch monitor are obvious on paper.

Portrait for a feed, square for cross-posting, wide for a slide, tall for Pinterest or a web page, A-series for print. Export at roughly twice the display size for screens, and as vector — PDF or SVG — for anything that will be printed. Then put the finding in the caption too, for the people whose images do not load.

Every size worth knowing is on the sizes reference.