This was created for a Master in Journalism class and was designed to get students thinking about ways to tell stories using infographics.

1. “Let the data set change your mind set.”

2. Some things to consider
• Keep it simple!
• Colour scheme
• Research and verify facts and statistics.
• Think of it as a visual essay: ensure your arguments are
relevant. Answer: WHY IS THIS STORY IMPORTANT?.
• It’s all about quickly conveying the meaning behind
complex data.
• Draw conclusions.
• Reference your facts in the infographic.
• Include cutlines, your credit and reference URL if it is an
embed so people can be sure who made it.
• Linear – Lead the reader through the data story

3. Visualization ideas
• Timelines;
• Flow charts;
• Annotated maps;
• Graphs;
• Venn diagrams;
• Size comparisons;
• Photo diagrams (“anatomy of a wedding dress”),
familiar objects or similar size or value.

4. Average expenditure per Canadian
Household

5. How can you re-create this?
Many Eyes

6. • Provotis
• Wordle

7. How can you make your data interactive?
WHY personalize?
-make relevant
-Increase engagement
-make emotional
EXAMPLES:
Arcade Fire – enter in your home address
The Wilderness Downtown
Reason magazine – home address on the cover

8. Jobless rate for people like you
• New York Times

9. 9-11 and Me
• USA Today

10. The Word Train

11. SOCIAL ENGAGEMENT
• New York Times

12. Put facts into context
• The size of small apple
• The size of Texas
• Put facts into relation to each other

13. • • Tableau Public
• Many Eyes
• Swivel
• Google Public Data Explorer
• Gapminder
• Wordle
• WorldMapper
• GunnMap
• StatPlanet Map Maker

14. References:
• Randy Krum / Cool Infographics
• David McCandless / Ted Talks
• Edward Segal / Knight Digital Center
• Vinita Srivastava
• Edward Tufte,
• Makeuseof: 10 infographic tips for journalists,

15. http://www.ryerson.ca/about/data/
RYERSON DATA: WHAT WILL YOU
VISUALIZE?