In my earlier post on this subject, I discussed the history of information design and some best practices associated with its use today.  It’s great to consider the past and present of this art, but what about the real context for most of us on a day-to-day basis?

In my career thus far, I haven’t to do much of this type of work.  In fact, between undergrad and business school, I don’t think I touched PowerPoint more than a few times.  Well, those days are over!  I’ve been serving in my new role at Arby’s for almost a month now, and I’ve already been asked to create what we call “one pagers.”  These summaries are a brief overview of a topic, usually presented via a PowerPoint slide.  It’s important that they present only the most critical information, and are used during the numerous meetings that happen on a daily basis.

So what role do infographics play?  Let’s just say that they’re a team player and not the star.  Our one-pagers are generally mostly text, organized in a way that is very clear and easy to read.  The graphs, data, etc. typically plays a support role or is left out altogether, only to be presented in more thorough presentations.  The key here is to extract the data into bullet points or going beyond that, make your point or recommendation based on the data.  I found a good example of the general form we use on, of all places, the Citizens for Public Justice website.  I agree with their format, and it can be seen here: http://www.cpj.ca/content/how-write-one-page-brief

I still believe that I will have to create a good bit of graphs and charts, however I think the true, modern form of infographics are typically left up to the design types and corporate communications department.  Luckily, the organization is fairly flat and meeting with those people, collaboration, and learning from them is eminent.

Although I may not be presenting as much of this type of work as I had expected, I believe I will certainly know how to create meaningful visualizations of data to support my future recommendations.  I look forward to the challenge and continued learning!