How to make an information map

Infographic is clear and clear, which attracts people's attention more than written descriptions and ordinary charts, and therefore attracts many fans like me. As a beginner, the most frequently asked question is: How are those attractive infographics formed? How to make an infographic by yourself?

Generally speaking, there are two ways to generate infographics:

1 Designer's Works

20 12 We often see magazines, websites and other media releasing recruitment information about infographics, and even news broadcast uses information visualization animation to describe domestic phenomena or changes brought about by the new system.

These infographics that appear on newspaper websites and aim at a certain topic, or information visualization animations on TV and Internet, are all made by designers.

Here is a 36Kr translated infographic to see what software designers use.

(Click to view larger image)

Of course, you don't need to learn so many kinds of software to make an infographic. The most practical ones are Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator. It is recommended to learn PS first (after learning one of these two softwares, the other one will be easy to use, because the interface and principle are the same).

There are also some posts in the group that can be used as a reference for making infographics: how much you know about infographics of fruit shells, the collection of interactive visual graphics design websites, and some thoughts on designing visual graphics.

2 visualization tool generation

It can be generated by code or visualization tools.

To learn code, novices generally choose processing language, which is an extension of Java language and supports many existing Java language architectures, but the syntax is much simpler. Processing can be used on Windows, MAC OS X, MAC OS 9, Linux and other operating systems.

Visualization tools are more abundant. Please refer to "Recommendation of Free Data Visualization Analysis Tool" and "Visual.ly Releasing the First Automated Drawing Tool".

The animation about visual information that everyone likes to watch is usually made in FLASH ... It is reported that PPT can also be used. ※.

In addition, information maps with clear themes, distinctive features or very beautiful ones are mostly made by designers. Most of the drawings in various professional fields and those focusing on data analysis are generated by software, and of course some are made by designers who go against the sky.

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Then lz will talk about the feeling of information visualization:

It is often said that it is very difficult to get started with information visualization. To learn software, you have to learn this and that, and the results can't be seen in a few days.

What lz wants to say is that as an amateur, you don't need an introduction to information visualization, but you should try to apply this visualization idea to your study. As a person who wants to take this as a career, you shouldn't still be reading this article now. ...

Some people say, are you more concerned about infographics? Lz believes that before the concept of "information visualization" appeared, this idea has existed for a long time in human history, and zebra crossings and traffic lights are also applications of this idea. Why do we need to install a screen on the color Doppler ultrasound machine in the hospital? Why can we see maps of various trends in the weather forecast? Why is UI getting more and more attention? Because we all want to see clearly in this world with huge information.

The more clearly you see, the more open your mind will be. Information visualization is to show information more clearly and make it easier for people to use. The formation of this subject is because people have applied this idea to all walks of life.

Why not apply this idea to your life and study? You can convert data into graphics when you do ppt. When you seek a solution to a problem, you can draw a picture in your mind; When you show your achievements, you can show them better.

Information visualization is actually very close to life. As a discipline, its history is not long. As an idea, it has always been there.

I hope more people understand information visualization. If you like, make an infographic first ~