Infographics: what is it, what is it like and how is it used in graphic design?

You can spend hours talking about how your product works, or show one diagram and collect more “oh, I see” in 10 seconds than the entire sales team does in a day. Infographics is a language of visual solutions that is read faster than text and immediately explains what new features you have added and how exactly you differ from your competitors. In 2025, it is used to control the attention of the audience, convey the idea and turn dry numbers into “wow, let’s take it!” If you're still wasting slides on sheets of text, it's time to learn to speak with pictures. Below are instructions on how to make infographics so that they are sticky and not boring.

What are infographics

Infographics are a way to explain complex things without boring the audience with long text, a visual format that combines graphs, diagrams, icons and short captions in one picture. Thus, for example, you can describe to marketers at what stages and what content is used in the sales funnel, or create a visual script for managers on how to communicate with difficult clients, so that in response to “you’re absolutely crazy there, where’s my order?!” it didn’t sound like “uh... now I’ll ask the senior,” but a polite and confident answer according to the checklist.

The advantage of infographics is its clarity. Research shows that images are processed 6-600 times faster by the brain than text. And this is true for any field, from offline speaking to e-mail marketing. So, if on average people spend about 9 seconds reading one email, then the longer the text, the higher the likelihood that they will read the first few lines and close it. So maybe it makes sense to pack all the most important things into infographics and put them on the first screen?

With it you can:

• visualize data (especially when there are a lot of numbers);

• create instructions, for example, how to place an order or how the API works, that will be read;

• draw attention to the product card - differences and advantages are immediately visible;

• structure thoughts in a presentation or report;

• strengthen the argumentation in marketing materials and SMM.

Unlike charts and tables in Excel, infographics should be “catchy.” Especially now, when the vlog format has almost replaced the text and moved pictures. Therefore, designers go to great lengths to interest the audience. For example, they come up with creative characters, use stickers, and so on. A really cool infographic goes from being a tool for visually presenting complex information to becoming a meme, evoking emotions, remaining in presentations, and forwarded to friends. Even the most dull instructions - be it for sorting waste in the office or setting up the MFP-666 printer in the accounting department - become understandable and a little less inhumane. Because instead of a wall of text with abstract descriptions like: “press the X button, use the keys to select item Y, press Ok,” we see where to press, why to press and why it is better not to press there a second time. In this form, the text is better remembered, and the short diagram itself can be attached directly to the device.

Types of infographics

We have collected the main types of modern infographics in a table for clarity. 

Any of these types can be revived - add animation (within reasonable limits), clickable elements and turn a static image into an interactive resource.

Benefits of infographics

We believe that this is real art that one cannot help but admire. Here in front of you is a table of 700 lines, a little skill and magic, and it turns into art that even those who are not in the subject like. Here's what it's for:

1. Saves time and nerves
   
   You can show revenue growth by region in Excel. Or you can - with one picture, where at first glance it is clear to anyone why the Ural sank.

2. Easy to share
   
   Infographics can be saved and reposted, and are easy to use. Try doing the same with a 10-page Word document.

3. The image works for SEO
   
   Beautiful visuals not only collect assets on social networks, but also provide backlinks when your delivery market graph is published by the media, bloggers and competitors with the caption “according to our colleagues.” This, as a bonus, strengthens your position in searches and increases your expertise from the point of view of search engines.

4. Keeps your attention in the world of clips
   
   When the audience has a TikTok memory, three paragraphs of text is an eternity. But a beautiful infographic with a clear message and a before/after visual goes straight to the heart. Even if the topic is the tax burden on SMEs.

5. Allows you to study without cramming
   
   Teachers, coaches, and science bloggers have long known that infographics explain complex things faster than a 10-minute video. For example, in 2023, NASA showed how to safely view a solar eclipse in one turn.

6. Rescue for consulting When you need to show a complex process of 12 stages, 7 departments and 3 CRM systems - visualize. Infographics will replace 3 meetings, 4 PDFs and 15 verbal explanations, the client will understand that you are a genius and will give you another project.

7. Not a comic, but you'll get stuck
   
   Cute characters, icons, pictograms turn data into a story in accordance with the Data Storytelling trend. When a health screening campaign looks like a Pixar poster, it gets reposted. And if it’s just text, they scroll through it

When do you need infographics?

In all cases where the text does not work. These could be long instructions, a description of the logic of the process, a presentation of the product/service, landing pages, reports, sales scripts, explanations of new features or step-by-step manuals for employees. An interesting visual presentation turns the complex into simple, helps to avoid mistakes, is easy to remember (especially if it is a safety instruction that no one reads), and is understandable both for a team of five people and for an audience of thousands at a conference. It also helps sell the idea, speed up approvals and avoid misunderstandings.

How to Create Effective Infographics

Before giving the technical specifications to the designer, answer the following questions:

1. Who is your target audience? Visuals for an investor and a student are as different as sushi and dumplings. One needs it clearly, with graphs and numbers, the other needs memes and tips. Important points: what device will they watch on and what should they do? 

2. How are you different from your competitors? It's corny, but it always works. Do your own thing. For example, if a nearby cafe has drawn a standard list of coffee beans with roast levels, you can make an index of espresso in five coffee shops with a graph of vigor, a price chart and a heat map of “where they give a croissant as a gift.” 

3. Is the structure sufficiently developed? Don't get carried away with the visuals, the main thing here is to tell a story with a beginning, middle and ending. Break your thought into blocks, build a chain, place accents. Only after this - colors, arrows and seals.

4. Is there a visual hierarchy? This is the distribution of information in such a way that the reader's gaze naturally moves from the most important to the particular. Use headings and subheadings, fonts of different sizes and colors, highlight key points with bold text so that they immediately catch the eye. 

5. Where will you use it? If the infographic is going to be published on a blog or website, don't forget about SEO. Name the file properly (infografika-rosta-pribyli.png is better than 1.png), add alt, give a short description next to it to get additional traffic. 

Important: if during preparation you realize that there is not enough data or meaning, do not try to draw it out with beautiful pictures. Most likely, the problem here is not in the visuals. 

Tools for creating infographics

Of the options available in Russia, we can praise Flyvi.io. It is called the closest analogue of the outgoing Canva; it is a Russian graphic editor that works online without any problems. Suitable for creating infographics, banners, product cards and anything that can be visualized. There are ready-made templates for Ozon, Wildberries, Yandex Market, social networks, etc., built-in AI workshop. The SUPA service is more geared towards creating animated content and videos, but it also provides templates for infographics. Adobe Illustrator and its closest alternatives are excellent programs: CorelDRAW, Inkscape, etc. You can create visuals in them for the final report to investors, the functionality is powerful, but you will have to understand the interface. For simpler projects, old-school PowerPoint is suddenly the way to go: it allows you to put together some decent infographics right in your presentation. 

In addition, you can use neural networks. For example, for quickly sketching a structure (ChatGPT, YandexGPT, DeepSeek), generating icons and illustrations (DALL·E, Kandinsky), drafts to show to the client. But to create a truly working one infographic design, understandable and interesting to the audience, the AI prototype needs to be completed by hand. Or immediately contact the designer.

Step-by-step creation instructions

Let's imagine that you urgently need to show at what stage your business is losing customers. Let's take an example of working in Flyvi.io - if necessary, the steps can be easily adapted to any other editor. 

1. Register on the site or log in through your Yandex/Google account. This is necessary to access even free templates. 

2. On the main page, under “What do you want to create today?” Select Business → Infographics.

3. Choose a template that suits the task and transfer it to the canvas. Any element in it can be changed: replace the text, recolor the background, swap the blocks. 

4. Upload your files: photos, diagrams, icons, etc. to the editor via the “Upload Media” button. They can be added to the template.

5. Customize colors and fonts according to your brand book. You should not use more than two or three colors; fonts should be easy to read both in print and on a projector. 

6. Save as PNG or PDF depending on where you will use it. Please note that in the free plan, all files will have a watermark. 

Publish and share the finished infographic on your website, social networks, corporate blog, add it to a report, presentation, or use it in other ways.

Examples of successful infographics

If you want to get inspired by the scale of the work, take a look at this NASA infographic detailing the workings of the Space Launch System. The DM-1 engine for the Space Launch System, Artemis I and Artemis II, Flight Support Booster-2 and much more are shown in colorful slides. 

Animation and interactivity in 2025 increase audience interest: if there is something to poke at, viewers will stay on the page longer. For example, the huge infographic “The World’s Largest Data Leaks and Hacks” by Information is Beautiful. Each ball contains information about the incident; you just need to click the mouse. Moving elements are used to show an accelerated process, for example, the construction of a subway, to draw attention to individual blocks or numbers, to demonstrate how intangible objects behave (what about Bitcoin?) and how to interact with them. 

One of the trends for 2025 is super-detailing, these are visuals with a lot of numbers and details, they are intended for professionals. Often used, for example, in IT, fintech, and so on. For example, Finshots, an Indian news site, showed the cost of mobile Internet in different countries. The graph is built according to the principle “from the most expensive to the cheapest”, and the eye immediately catches on Zimbabwe: $43.75 for 1 GB, wow! And this is not just numbers, but history: Zimbabwe is expensive due to infrastructure, India is cheaper due to a fragmented market. It doesn’t seem like anything interesting, but I still want to finish reading it.

Mistakes when creating infographics

Don't make these mistakes if it's important to you that visual learners consider and remember. 

1. Too many things. Diagrams, arrows, quotes, emoticons and gifs just cause your brain to explode. There should be one idea on one screen. 

2. They didn’t take into account the target audience. If you make an infographic about profit growth for investors, and it looks like a “SALE!” banner, it won’t work. 

3. We went too far with colors and fonts. To prevent viewers from wanting to stick a mixer in their eyes, be modest; a clear corporate palette and readable texts are more important than a desire for experimentation. 

4. Get carried away by the text. This is not an article or a replacement for a landing page, the main thing here is the pictures, and the inscriptions are used as auxiliary ones. 

5. Forgot about structure. A good visual should have a consistent story. If you don't have that, you'll end up with a teenager's room, clothes on the floor, sneakers on the table, a dachshund on the bed. 

6. Beautiful, but unclear. We've seen works that look more like art than infographics, and can be framed or hung on the wall. But when you stop admiring, the question remains: “What was that all about?” 

7. Adaptive was ignored. On a wide screen everything is perfect, but if you open it on a smartphone, oops - the inscriptions are tiny, the pictures are scattered. Check the visual on different devices.

The future of infographics

Infographics are moving from being a pretty visual to becoming the smartest, most personalized tool possible. Already, large brands are increasingly using AI; in the future, its role will clearly increase, primarily in order to adapt creatives on the fly to different devices and audience segments. The role of engaging visual stories is growing, in particular interactive ones, where the story is adjusted to the user. In the near future, a more active implementation of augmented reality technologies is predicted: using a QR code on a business card, it will be possible to launch pop-up infographics with brand KPIs. 

Do you want your visuals to catch your attention at first sight anywhere: on a website, on a billboard or in a business center elevator? Contact us.