Blood Pressure: Know Your Numbers

Being knowledgeable about your health is always helpful. Your blood pressure is no exception, 1/3 people who have strokes die because of high blood pressure. The Blood Pressure infographic created by westfieldhealth.com describes what blood pressure is, what it means, and then how to maintain a healthy blood pressure. The infographic was found on behance.net.

High blood pressure puts strain on your heart and increases your likelihood of developing health problems in the future. It is one of the most common causes of heart attacks and strokes, and is also a risk factor for heart disease, kidney disease and dementia. One in three people in the UK have high blood pressure even though just a few simple steps can help combat it. By checking your blood pressure, exercising regularly and reducing the amount of salt in your diet you can significantly lower your blood pressure and enjoy a healthier lifestyle.

The infographic provides some useful tips and advice about how you can keep your blood pressure in check.

This is a really good design with great information for people.  I wish it was a little bit easier to understand though.  A few of the data visualizations are not clearly explained.

In Blood pressure High Spots, I don’t understand what the size of each symbol on the UK map represents.  The implication is the amount of reports high blood pressure cases, but the values are not shown.  I don’t understand the right circle at all.  The percentage numbers seem to be spread on a map, but it’s not the UK, and I don’t recognize it.

In Looking After your Blood Pressure, I think this diagram is completely artistic, even though it seems to imply that it’s a data visualization.

In A Guide to Blood Pressure Levels, the area chart seems to be a visualization over time of some sort, but no x-axis values are shown, so the readers can’t tell what this chart means.

Thanks to Luke for sending in the link!

Top 20 Field Service Management Software Solutions

The new Top 20 Field Service Management Software infographic from Capterra continues their series of “Top 20 Most Popular” infographics for different software categories.  I’ve previously posted about the Top 20 Marketing Automation Software Solutions and the Top 20 Medical Records Software Solutions.

This design shows a little more detail behind how they score and rank the different software options.

Field Service Management software serves companies that send technicians or other employees into the field by helping them automate scheduling and dispatching. Below is a look at the most popular options as measured by a combination of their total number of clients, active users and online presence. In order to see a comprehensive list, please visit our Field Service Management Software Directory.

Capterra developed a popularity index consisting of three components to rank the field service management providers: number of customers (40%), number of end users (40%), and online presence (20%). The online presence metrics included traffic estimates from Compete.com, as well as the company’s number of LinkedIn followers, Facebook page likes, Twitter followers, and Klout scores – each weighted equally to comprise 20% of the vendor’s overall score.

The stacked bars to showing the three separate score metrics works nicely, and is a clear visual of the descending total scores.  The Rank numbers are in colored boxes that match the primary brand colors of each software company, but the readers don’t know that.  Without seeing the actual company logos, the colors just look random and create some unnecessary visual noise.

By not showing the company logos throughout the design, it’s harder for the reader to see where a particular company appears in the different sections.  A visual logo would be easy to recognize at a glance, but in just text, the reader has to read every entry to try to find a match.

Nice, clear Call-To-Action at the end of the design, so the target audience readers know what they should with this information.  The footer should also include a copyright statement and the URL link to the infographic landing page on Capterra’s site so readers can find the original, full-size version.

Star Trek: The Original Series

The Star Trek infographic designed by Natalya Platonova was originally designed in Russian for Svinovik.ru. This infographic is a visual overview of some quirky statistics from the complete original series (three seasons).

Overall, very well done!  As a Trekkie myself, the visualizations are fun facts about the series, and well designed.  I like that the quantitative values (like the uniforms worn) are shown as the actual numbers and not scaled. 

A couple of framing pieces of information would have been helpful.  The original design is published along with a text article, but some introductory text in the infographic itself would be nice because the image file gets shared without any of the text from the article.  The fotter should include some type of copyright or Creative Commons license and the URL for readers to be able to find the original, full-size versions.

Here’s the original version in Russian:

Found on Visual Loop!

Defending the Death Star

Old age meets new age. Defending the Death Star with A little Data Center Design takes a concept that people can relate to (Star Wars) and applies modern day data center technologies. Brought to you by Data Center Reports.

When Aristotle first explained the concept of “hamartia” in Poetics, he probably didn’t know just how many hero and villain stories would be driven forward by fatal flaws in character, judgment or planning. The Star Wars saga is an epic tale that is powered by fatal flaws – yet we couldn’t help but wonder how things might have turned out had the Empire used a little of today’s security insights to better protect the superweapon better known as the Death Star.

This infographic design tells a good story with illustrations.  No big data sets to visualize, but a simple story that’s incredibly easy for the reader to understand.  The Star Wars comparison puts the different technologies into context for the reader.

The footer should include a copyright and the URL link to the original infographic so readers can easily find the original high-resolution version.

Found on Data Center Reports

Evolution of the Batman Logo

The Evolution of Batman poster designed by Cathryn Lavery from Calm the Ham is a visual history of the Batman symbol over the years.  I can’t think of any consumer logo that has changed this much, but the Batman logo remains a very powerful and recognizable brand.

A comprehensive and extensive chart of the Batman logo evolution, spanning over 72 years from 1940 - 2012 to map the transformation of a timeless hero.  Thanks to DC Comics for creating this cultural icon that we can all obsess over, all logos belong to them.

The infographic timeline covers 72 years (1940-2012) and shows different version of Mr. Wayne’s logo so the reader can easily distinguish the different iterations.  Additional information like the year and media publication format are listed in text.  I would have liked to see them spaced out along an actual timeline, but this design format fits better on a standard poster.  Three different size posters are available from the Calm the Ham site.

I found this design on the FastCoDesign site, but a few other designers have also tackled this specific history.  Cathryn Lavery mentions this 2008 video from Rodrigo Alejandro Rojas Sandoval as being the first one she knows of that had attempted this:

I saw this design on Nathan Yau’s FlowingData site in 2010, but he wasn’t able to cite the original source.  This one shows fewer versions, and doesn’t include any additional information.

Infographic Holiday Cards 2012

This is a limited time offer!  

Funnel Incorporated is offering a FREE 4-pack of infographic holiday cards to everyone that submits a request (while supplies last) through a giveaway on Facebook.  You must request your free pack of cards through the Facebook page by Noon CT on Saturday December 22 (Tomorrow!).

U.S. and Canada only, but anyone can download the infographic holiday themed wallpaper designs from the Funnel website at http://www.funnelinc.com/holiday

Fire Code Regulations for Live Christmas Trees in Schools

Fire Code Regulations for Live Christmas Trees in Schools is an informational infographic from the team at Balsam Hill, an online retailer for artificial Christmas trees.  This design is meant to help school officials and purchasing agents all over the country, and not really intended for the general public online.

Setting up a real Christmas tree in a school requires detailed knowledge of a state’s Christmas tree fire code. School fire code regulations for real Christmas trees vary by city and state, and can be overwhelming to puzzle out due to a confusing and sometimes conflicting set of rules. The Balsam Hill Christmas Tree Company has compiled each state’s school fire code regulations for live trees into an infographic for schools and school districts to reference. Look through the infographic to help you decide whether or not an artificial Christmas tree may be a more practical alternative for your school this holiday season.

From a marketing perspective, this design succeeds tremendously.  The overall message is clear: “Regulations around live Christmas trees in schools are complicated.  An artificial tree would be much easier.”  Balsam Hill put together a ton of research (look at the number of sources!), and even though they were able to gather the state level regulations, many cities, counties and individual school districts have their own regulations that may be contradictory.  A number of major cities with different regulations than their state are highlighted, but that list is incomplete.  It only shows a few cities that have different regulations to let the reader know that state level fire codes aren’t the only regulations that schools have to follow.

The design does a good job of clarifying very complicated information, but that can only go so far.  The regulations are actually very complex, so this is still a very long design to thoroughly visualize the data.  Great job using visual design to help readers understand a very complex issue!

You can see additional designs that also cover the regulations for Hotels and Churches.

Facebook’s Network of Worldwide Affiliates

From BusinessProfiles.com, this Facebook infographic takes a look at the complex virtual network of affiliates behind Facebook.

Earlier this week, Facebook’s proposed revisions to its legal agreements with users went into effect following a vote by the social network’s users. One of the changes means that Facebook can now share your data with its affiliates. But who exactly are Facebook’s affiliates? Most of the media coverage has focused on Instagram. But Business Profiles research can now reveal that Facebook has at least 67 Facebook affiliate companies worldwide. The results are summarized in today’s infographic.

I like this design, and it has some great information about what Facebook’s legal agreements really mean to members.  It’s a focused story that isn’t trying to tell the reader too much information.  The color scheme is so close to the official Facebook brand colors and design that it could easily be misunderstood as an official publication, which it isn’t.

The lack of clear title makes this infographic design hard to share.  Anyone that posts a link has to make up a related title, which will be very inconsistent.  The lack of clear title, also makes it more challenging for a reader to know why they should take the time to read the infographic.  The risk is being considered “just another infographic about Facebook” and ignored by readers.

The map data is clear and easy to read.  The affiliate connects are the most interesting part of this design.  When the privacy policy says they can share you personal information with Facebook Affiliates, this is who they actually mean.

We sourced this information from our own extensive corporate registration directory as well as from other public and subscription sources. Please note that not every jurisdiction makes comprehensive business registration readily available. As a result, there are likely even more Facebook affiliates than those listed above. However, we hope that this gives some sense of the extensive and rapidly expanding physical footprint of the social network.

Information sources were obviously a challenge, and the statement above is included under the design on the infographic landing page.  However, there is no Sources statement in the footer of the design itself, so when the infographic is shared on other sites there is no mention of where the data came from.  Infographic designs really need to have the data sources listing in the image file so they go with the infographic when shared online.

Found on Infographic Journal

Eat Like A Caveman With The Paleo Diet

The Paleo Diet infographic from DrVita.com shows readers what it would take to eat like a caveman!

For those of you who keep asking yourself, “is there a diet that is right for me?” There are hundreds of diets to pick and choose from. One popular diet is Paleo. Below is Paleo in a nutshell.

The paleo diet, sometimes referred to the caveman diet is based on the diet of ancient humans. Getting nutrients from vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, meats, and fish, this diet helps you achieve a healthy and nutritious diet. This infographic helps you understand why the paelo diet is healthy, what foods to eat and avoid, and how it works. Give it a try and see if this diet is right for you.

The design is a good, short explanation of the Paleo Diet, and what it would take eat only natural foods like our ancestors.  Intuitively it makes sense, since processed foods and grains are a relatively recent discovery in the history of mankind.

Mostly just a visual explanation, there are a couple statistics included that would have have been better if they had been represented as data visualizations.  The footer should include both a copyright statement and the URL directly to the original, full-size infographic so readers can find the high-resolution version.

Thanks to Mat for sending in the linK!

The New Christmas Tradition...Artificial Christmas Trees!

Wow!  Apparently the U.S. has completely converted over to artificial Christmas trees while no one was looking!  The Redefining Christmas Traditions infographic from Tree Classics is a summary of findings from two Nielsen studies in both 2011 and 2012 and information from the American Christmas Tree Association.

Every Christmas tradition begins somewhere, and those of us who follow Christmas tree trends know that more and more families are building their holiday traditions around artificial Christmas trees. Find out who’s buying artificial, where they live, and why more and more people are choosing artificial in our infographic of real vs fake artificial Christmas tree facts. If you’re thinking of starting a family tradition of your own, consider buying a Pre Lit Christmas Tree from Tree Classics and start making holiday memories that will last year after year!

The design does a great job of jumping to the main point right away.  A huge majority of homes in the U.S. use artificial Christmas trees for the holidays.  This is the Key Message of the design, and it communicates that fact in less than 5 seconds to the readers.  So even if they don’t read the rest of the design, they still understand the main point.  Also, what makes a popular infographic is bringing to light some surprising, unexpected information to the readers.

The shear magnitude of the number was surprising to me, and I think it will be to a lot of readers.  We see real live Christmas trees being the symbol of home and family traditions in the media, but the reality is that 3.5x more homes display artificial trees than live ones.

All of the important design elements are there.  Focused topic, clear data visualizations to support the Key Message, respectable sources cited, copyright statement and the URL to the original infographic so readers can find the full-size version.

Designed by InfoNewt with designer Jeremy Yingling