Infographic credit: Ivan Cash
Infographics are everywhere! Whether you’re a fan of them or not, infographics have become a staple of web content and are engaged in a seemingly endless love affair with social media. As digital marketers, we’re interested in the content marketing potential of infographics, which can generate thousands of pageviews, social media shares, backlinks and capture mindshare.
If you’re interested in developing your own infographics to reap these potential benefits, we put together this list of 30+ useful infographic tools and resources to help you on your way. We included a well-rounded mix of charts & graphs generators, graphics programs, mind-mapping tools, and resources for finding data sets and statistics.
Whether you’re just looking for simple online charting tools or seeking complex data visualization software, the list below has got you covered!
(Listed below in Alphabetical order!)
amCharts – A set of free JavaScript/HTML5-based chart tools that can cover most of your needs, whether designing static infographics or developing embeddable “live” charts! Includes serial charts, pie/donut, radar/polar and xy/scatter/bubble charts. Cross-browser & standards-compliant!
Bubbl.us – A free online brainstorming tool that lets you easily build colorful mindmaps to print or share with others. Screenshot your creations for incorporating into infographics, presentations and other content!
Cacoo – Create eye-catching diagrams online with real-time collaboration! User-friendly drawing tool that enables you to create a variety of diagrams like sitemaps, wireframes, and network charts. Free version is more limited, but still powerful.
Chartle (Beta) – Simple, browser-based tool for creating slick-looking charts & graphs easily using a variety of pre-built templates like US Map, Venn Diagram, and many others. Publish, share & embed your creations or screenshot them for including in infographics!
ChartsBin – A web-based data visualization tool that will allow everyone to quickly and easily create rich interactive visualizations with their own data. You can then share your interactive visualizations with others by embedding them in websites, blogs or sharing via Facebook or Twitter.
Creately – Create beautiful-looking charts and diagrams quickly & collaboratively. Has an extensive library of object sets and ready-made templates to make things easy. Offers both free & paid (but very affordable) versions to cover your needs.
Data360 – A treasure trove of useful, up-to-date data for incorporating into your infographics. Covers a wide range of topics, including Economy, Societal Trends, Energy, Environment and data by Country. If you’re looking data and statistics, start here!
Gapminder – Another great source of data for infographics. A “fact tank” that promotes a fact-based world view, here you’ll find updated statistical content, videos, Flash presentations, and charts showing major global development trends with animated statistics and colorful graphics.
Gephi – A free, cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac) interactive visualization and exploration platform for real-time data visualization. Deep-dive into data to interact with, manipulate, and extract knowledge from data. Creates beautiful, intricately-woven visualizations of complex data and systems.
Gliffy – Create great-looking diagrams for free. Professional-quality flowcharts, diagrams, floor plans, technical drawings, & other useful visuals you can incorporate into your infographics.
Google Public Data Explorer – Need very specific data for your infographics? This Google tool presents interactive charts of public data that you can explore, manipulate and screenshot for developing rich, informative infographics. Use the built-in search function to find information about specific topics.
Hohli – An easy-to-use online charts builder. Just select the type of chart you want to create, plug in your data, select a size, customize the look & feel, and you’re done!
InetSoft Visualize Free – A free visual analysis tool for sifting through multi-dimensional data to spot trends, abberations, and do some slicing & dicing. Includes a set of useful pre-made datasets and visualizations that you can interact with.
Inkscape – An open-source vector graphics editor for creating professional-quality infographics. If you can’t afford expensive vector graphics programs like Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw, this might be the solution for you!
JSCharts – Use JSCharts to easily generate impressive-looking JavaScript charts with no coding experience–bar charts, pie charts, and simple line graphs. Screenshot your creations for infographics, or embed them into your blog or website.
Lovely Charts – Premium tool that allows you to create professional-looking diagrams of all kinds, such as flowcharts, sitemaps, business processes, organization charts, wireframes and many more. Offers Desktop, Web-based, and iPad versions.
IBM Many Eyes – Explore a wealth of data sets, visualizations, and other useful information to inspire & inform your infographic development process. Create new topic centers & upload your own visualizations and data sets too!
Microsoft Office – Good ‘ol Microsoft Office–the ubiquitous but oft overlooked infographics tool! Whether you’re using the free web app versions or have the full-blown suite installed at home or work, chances are you already have access to programs like Excel, PowerPoint and Visio that all have helpful features for creating infographics.
Mind42 – Browser-based collaborative mind-mapping tool. Manage your ideas, visualize your brainstorms, and screenshot your creations adding well-organized, text simplicity into your infographics.
Mindomo – Another online brainstorming and mind-mapping tool that enables you to create beautiful-looking, collaborative visualizations of your thoughts and ideas.
Online Chart Tool – A simple, free browser-based tool for creating charts and graphs. Point & click to create Bar, Line, Area, Pie, Bubble charts and more. Customize your creations with colors and fonts, then save & share.
Re.vu – Using infographics as a résumé? Sure, why not! Re.vu is one of a new breed of services offering visual résumé storytelling for a more memorable, expressive way to inform your prospects and potential employers about your professional experience.
StatSilk – Offers a range of web-based and desktop software to cater to diverse visualization needs. Award-winning suite of products that includes StatPlanet, StatTrends & StatWorld.
Tableau – Robust, premium data visualization solution for analyzing and presenting data in more meaningful ways. Try Tableau Desktop for free, which includes sample workbooks and data sets.
Tagxedo – Online tool that turns words (quotes, slogans, themes, articles–anything you want) into visually stunning word clouds. Great for incorporating into infographics, blogs, and websites.
Visualize.me – Another visual résumé service that turns your work history and experience into beautiful infographics! Connect your LinkedIn account for easy integration with Visualize.me’s visual résumé tool.
Visualizing.org – Need data or inspiration for your infographics? Look no further! This is a massive collection of rich data sets and beautiful, well-organized infographics from all over the web. Community of designers, data geeks and educators regularly contribute. You’re bound to find something useful here.
Visual.ly – Another curated collection of beautiful infographics from around the web. Users can explore infographics, share their own designs for exposure and feedback, and soon they’ll be able to use Visual.ly to create infographics as well (tools in development).
Wolfram-Alpha – Extremely useful statistical analysis and research tool that you can use to calculate data, make predictions, and do some heavy-duty number crunching for infographics data plotting & development.
Wordle – Generates beautiful, customizable word clouds from your own text. Copy & paste your own words, or enter any RSS feed to automatically parse & scrape text. Tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts and color schemes.
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