Graphics and Info and Data, Oh My!

In a digital age where we are almost constantly bombarded with information, presenting materials in a visually friendly format has become increasingly popular.  Infographics abound as a way to condense information and make it more easily and quickly consumed by the reader.  There are now multiple resources available to aid in the creation of infographics, so today we will visit just a few of them. 

easel.ly - Easelly offers both free and paid versions of the program.  I only have experience with the free version, but it appears the paid version would grant the user access to a greater number of templates, individual graphics (for use on the templates), and fonts.  However with the free version there are still innumerable possibilities for what can be created.  The user has a choice of using already formatted backgrounds/templates or beginning with a completely blank slate.  For those more experienced with the creation of visuals, the paid version would come in handy here.  When creating from a blank slate there are ten total backgrounds to choose from outside of creating your own original background.  The only time I got a little frustrated with easelly was when trying to rearrange smaller graphics or text.  It seemed at though it would skip to the next space, jumping over where I actually wanted it to go. 

infogr.am - The Infogram project designer had many pros and cons at first glance.  The first thing I noticed were the number of options, but I also immediately took note that there were no options for beginning with a totally blank slate.  I knew I wanted to toy around with developing an infograhpic, but I wasn't sure which direction I wanted to go initially, so the lack of a blank choice felt restrictive to me.  However the templates that are offered by Infogram would be highly valuable for anyone working on projects for publication on a social media platform.  The layouts offered on this site have specific formats to fit Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram.  There is even an option to design an email header.  I could definitely see the benefits these tools would offer from a business standpoint. 

Piktochart - At first glance I wasn't as impressed with Piktochart.  There are eight templates to choose from in the free version, or you can begin with a blank one.  Within the blank templates the user does have the flexibility to pick one that closely resembles the article or information being presented.  From there it is customize-able so that it will match the information or article being presented.  It was user friendly with text and graphics that were easily moved and resized.  Piktochart is the program I used to create the graphic presented below due to the ease of matching a ready made template to the article I read.  Overall, I preferred the visual organization and user friendly mechanisms of Piktochart over the other two programs I experimented with.   
 
All of the above programs offer a variety of strengths and weaknesses, and any could easily be utilized by teachers or students.  Which one you may choose would essentially boil down to the specific project you are working on coupled with your personal preference on the site tools, templates, and visual organization.