Custom Illustrations

Create Beautiful Graphics With These Tips

CopyPress

March 16, 2018 (Updated: March 23, 2020)

In this article… 

• Hire a Professional Team at CopyPress
• Become a Canva Expert
• Get Started With Freepik
• Use a Venngage Template
• Get Visual With Visme
• Try Out Infogram
• Start Creating With Zanifesto
• Check Out Piktochart
• Open an Easel.ly Account
• Visualize Your Data with Google Charts
• Streamline Your Story With TimelineJS
• Tell a Story With Capzles
• Get High-Level Design Help With Visually
• Host a Contest via 99Designs

You can create beautiful graphics that tell complex, data-heavy stories in compelling, easy-to-understand ways. While you can certainly develop a completely custom infographic from scratch, you’ll jump start the process and save valuable time when you use a few of the most popular tools in the industry. Create beautiful graphics with these 14 tips, and you’ll have a stunning visual to share in no time at all.

Hire a Professional Team at CopyPress

Image via Flickr by Stefan Leijon

Want to leave the creative process to a professional team that knows exactly how to take your data from its raw form to an eye-catching infographic? Hire the CopyPress team to create beautiful graphics for your brand, and you can expect stunning visuals that get the results you’re seeking.

When you work with CopyPress, you can depend on an expert-level team for everything from ideation to writing to graphic creation to final production. Thanks to this customized design process, you won’t have to worry about your infographic looking like every other visual out there. In fact, your infographic’s completely unique look will ensure that it stands out from the crowd.

Want to add more functionality to your infographic? You can even choose between static infographics and interactive infographics, which prompt your target audience to engage with your content in precisely the way you want. Whether you want to post the finished product on your website or create a shareable link that others can reference, working with CopyPress ensures that you get the job done.

Become a Canva Expert

If you want to try more of a guided DIY approach to creating beautiful graphics, you’ll want to add Canva to your toolbox. If you already use this graphics platform to create social media and blog images, you’ll find the infographic creation process to be intuitive. If you’ve never tried the platform before, you’ll still find it to be user-friendly and easy to learn.

Start by selecting a premade Canva template or create your own using the dozens of available graphics and elements. Add all the visual components you need, then input text to tell your story before exporting your infographic in a format that works for you. Note that many layouts and elements are free to use, but some cost $1, making Canva a virtually free tool for infographic creation.

Get Started With Freepik

Sometimes all it takes is a great template to get your creative juices flowing. For one of the most expansive selections of free infographic templates anywhere, head straight to Freepik. This site is packed with tens of thousands of layouts in vector graphic format. These sleek templates are ready to go, so all you’ll need to add is your text. While you can’t customize the graphics or layouts, a compelling title and your unique story allow you to make these templates your own.

Freepik has over 15,000 infographic templates available for free download, but if you only have a free account, you’ll have to post your final graphic with a branded watermark. Consider upgrading to a premium account for watermark-free designs and slightly more functionality.

Use a Venngage Template

While many graphic design resources allow you to create a wide range of products, Venngage specializes in infographics. Even if you don’t consider yourself to be a design expert, there’s a good chance that you’ll find Venngage easy and rewarding to use. Once you zero in on a template that works for your story, you’ll find that Venngage lets you shift the graphics around, add text, and modify the layout to meet your needs. You can even add interactive elements like polls and videos for another layer of functionality.

Like many design resources, Venngage offers both a free and a paid tier. If you opt for the paid level, you’ll get access to additional templates and even more features that can help you create infographics that make an impact.

Get Visual With Visme

To get a sense of the full range of capabilities that Visme offers, consider creating a basic account. You’ll have a chance to test out the platform, see whether the preexisting templates and drag-and-drop functionality offer what you need, and decide whether upgrading to a paid account is worthwhile to you.

Note that Visme’s basic account allows you to create a small handful of projects and create limited charts and infographic widgets. You’ll need to upgrade to a standard or complete account to import data from programs like PowerPoint, get access to premium assets and templates, and view analytics that track the traffic your graphics generate. No matter which account level you choose, however, you’ll find that Visme offers some of the best templates and produces some of the sharpest infographics.

Try Out Infogram

Infogram might be one of the most popular infographic tools available, but it isn’t for everyone. This platform is ideal for brands that have a ton of data at their fingertips and need a way to translate it to a visual format. While Infogram won’t let you create the most visually striking infographics ever, this platform will allow you to tell complex data stories.

Get started with the basic free version, but be prepared to upgrade to a paid version for full functionality. Not only does the free version offer very limited editing capabilities, but it also requires you to include an Infogram watermark on your finished product. Opt for the paid version to access a much larger media library and to use analytics to track traffic.

Start Creating With Zanifesto

If you’re artistically inclined or if you aren’t satisfied until you’ve customized even the smallest details, you’ll appreciate Zanifesto, which offers users full functionality for free. Get started with one of the platform’s templates or make one from scratch.

Either way, you can customize absolutely everything, from the colors of the font and background to the placement of the graphic elements. If you just want a little inspiration to get started, don’t hesitate to browse the Zanifesto gallery to see what other users have done.

Check Out Piktochart

For one of the fastest and easiest infographic tools on the market, try Piktochart. This platform boasts that you can create an infographic in just five minutes, so it’s in your best interest to give it a try to determine whether it works for you.

After creating a free account, choose a premade infographic template and add your data. If you don’t love the way your story looks, use Piktochart’s many tools to customize the infographic. You can input more text, insert photos, add maps, and even feature charts and videos. When you’re satisfied with the finished product, simply download, share, or embed your infographic to get your brand’s story out there.

Open an Easel.ly Account

When you want to drop your data into a preexisting template and let a great design do the rest, Easel.ly is a great resource. This platform has a complete range of over 1,000 fully developed themes, so all you have to do is choose one that works for your data and input the information you need to tell your story. If you’d rather customize your layout or even create one from scratch, you can do that with Easel.ly’s full range of icons and graphic elements.

Once you’ve created the ideal graphic for your brand, you can download it for your website or get a shareable link that you can post on social media. This platform is free to use with a basic plan, or you can upgrade to the affordable Pro plan and get full functionality for a few dollars per month.

Visualize Your Data with Google Charts

If you want to keep your data visualization relatively simple, give Google Charts a try. This straightforward tool allows you to create everything from line charts to tree maps, and you can make them as basic or as complex as you want. If you’re looking for inspiration or if you want to use a premade chart to showcase your data, start browsing the platform’s gallery of charts. You can switch among several chart types before you create your final product, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to try out different visualizations.

Before you get started, note that you’ll need at least a little technical knowledge to use Google Charts. You’ll need to embed JavaScript in your website, point the platform to the data you want to feature, create a chart object, and display your finished Google Chart.

Streamline Your Story With TimelineJS

TimelineJS might not look like other infographics tools, but this platform allows anyone to tell stories through an event-driven timeline. If you have a chronological narrative to convey and a compelling story with both graphic and textual components, you’ll appreciate this journalism-oriented platform. Since it’s free to use and can access external media sources, TimelineJS can be a great choice for multimedia presentations.

One of the biggest perks of TimelineJS is that it’s an open-source tool that anyone can use and modify as necessary. Even if you aren’t a graphic design expert, you can still use this tool to create eye-catching graphics — even if all you have to work with is data in Google Sheets format. If you have more graphic design experience, you can use TimelineJS to create beautiful graphics that prompt effective interactions.

Tell a Story With Capzles

Capzles might be oriented toward younger designers and brands with simpler storytelling needs, but it could be a good option if you’re seeking a web-based application to create infographics. This platform lets you input your visual and multimedia content, including photos, videos, and audio components and then compile it to create an interactive timeline.

You won’t find premade infographic templates here, but you will find a flexible platform that lets you showcase your own content. If you’re looking to get started with web-based graphic design, this could be the platform for you. When you’re happy with the look of your interactive timeline, you can share it with your audience through your blog or social media platforms.

Note that Capzles requires Flash, so you can’t use it with every device. In addition, audience members who use mobile devices may not be able to access this interactive content.

Get High-Level Design Help With Visually

Using preexisting infographic layouts doesn’t always allow your brand to stand out the way you want. For designs that are unique yet don’t exceed your budget, Visually can be a smart choice. Join the platform, and you’ll get the help you need creating a memorable graphic from a team of designers and creative experts. Whether you start with a general concept, a complete dataset, a basic design idea, or a wireframe, the team at Visually can provide you with the rest of the puzzle pieces you need.

In an average of just over two weeks, you’ll go from basic idea to completed product. You’ll have an infographic that’s ready to share with your social followers, educate your target audience, and generate new leads for your brand.

Host a Contest via 99Designs

When you lack the graphic design skills to develop an infographic from scratch, the time to apply your data to a preexisting template, and the budget to hire a professional team, you might think that you’re out of luck in the infographic department. However, you still have a great resource at your disposal.

When you outsource your infographic to 99Designs, you describe your project, establish some parameters, and open the floor to submissions from graphic designers based around the world. You’ll effectively launch a contest that countless highly qualified designers will compete to enter, and then you’ll get to choose the designer you want to work with. You’ll establish a budget up front so you won’t encounter surprise fees along the way, and you’ll get production-ready files and the copyright to your infographic at the end of the simple process.

Whether you’re creating your first infographic or your 50th design, these resources will help you make your next one as effective and visually stunning as possible. Use these tips to get those creative juices flowing, and get ready to tell your brand’s story in a whole new way.

CopyPress

CopyPress writer

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