Title makes it sound like he's going to delineate the difference between "infographic" and "non-infographic", but it seems to run into the "real Christians" problem where anything he doesn't like "isn't an infographic". Apparently it's categorically impossible for an infographic to be less than fantastic, which is an odd definition of infographic.
I really wish he (Ian Lurie) spend more time giving examples of great information (/data) graphics and what strategies to take when designing such graphics. To me, this comes off as a mere complain.<p>Lurie links to Mark (Mapstone?) who, also, complains about infographics. I'd like to take a shot at how they could make better infographics. Especially a graphic by Mashable Infographics about the 1.8 zettabytes of data produced every year.<p>The "1.8 zettabyte"-graphic from Mashable shows a lot of (meaningless) comparison, but absolutely no causality. Imagine if they instead talked about all the different sources of information, adding up to the enormous quantity of 1.8 zettabytes. Like the amount of video uploaded to YouTube everyday, the number of Tweets and there size in gigabytes per day, the increasing number of cameras being bought, growth on Wikipedia and probably many more.
For actual depth and substance regarding information visualization, you should just read Tufte, since much of this article is obviously informed by it: <a href="http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi" rel="nofollow">http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/books_vdqi</a>
As a designer I'd like to thank you for this post. This recent fad of "infographics" (some text in rectangles + pie chart) is quite sad. These things are information graphics about as much as fake lens flares were graphic design in the 90s.<p>Side note: are you serious about people paying for this?
If you're going to use a flashy javascript popup mechanism to view image links, please make sure at the very least that people whose screens aren't as wide as the image can access the close button!
Maybe instead of bashing infographics designers would benefit from figuring out why they are so popular? This "Cult of Tufte" stuff is kind of grating. Minard's map showing Napoleon's march into Moscow is a great example. It is an elegant chart that shows 6 key bits of information (# of troops, location, direction, temp, time, attrition), but it's a bore to look at.<p>It might be the greatest piece of info design ever, but it will draw less attention than a lame "infographic".<p>I think "Infographics" have huge potential, just like blog slide shows do. Both are universally reviled by "serious" thinkers, but are incredibly popular. I see them revealing a need for more condensed, actionable information, not a scourge. There is signal in that noise.
My biggest beef with infographics is that they are almost always a static image. This is 2012. Why not make something interactive? It could help address several of the author's points as well.
The wide proliferation of really terrible ones seems to tie into some murky SEO tactic of getting a designer to whip you up something 'viral', stick it on the www.totallylegitadultdiplomaswithfreeviagra.com root, and then have a cute little 'share this' link that gives you the url along with a blob of html stuffed with invisible SEOjunk keywords, and rely on people's laziness and stupidity to get the backlinks flowing.<p>I recall reading a good article on it a while back, but oddly enough, "SEO infographics" is now a sufficiently desirable niche that there are junk infographics just waiting to take your call.
I disagree. I now mentally associate the word "infographic" with "poorly-thought-out blog post that the author wrote in Photoshop in order to familiarize himself with all of its features." As for a graphic that conveys information, well, those don't exist anymore.
I agree completely but unfortunately I doubt people will do them right until they stop attracting eyeballs. To the well informed, bad info graphics are a plague on the web. To my sister's teenage friends and my mother's circle of friends they're "oh cool, I don't have to read!". Self respecting graphic designers won't create these awful "info graphics" but anyone who's looking to attract some eyeballs in the hopes of getting an ad or two clicked or a new rss subscriber will keep polluting the web with them until we stop looking.