Why DFW? 2015

Why DFW? A guide to starting, building, and growing your business in Dallas-Fort Worth

Based on data from 2015, I designed this infographic (InfoNewt) very quickly over a weekend in conjunction with Debra Swersky (@DebraSwersky) and The Dallas Entrepreneur Center (The DEC) co-working space located in downtown Dallas.

I love being a part of the Dallas startup community! It's a growing, vibrant, fully-enagaged community of entrepreneurs, and I have a bunch of ideas for future infographics.

Also created a social graphic with 2:1 Aspect ratio for easy sharing on Twitter and other social media platforms.

What's Your Ideal Workplace?

Based on your own individual personality, the What's Your Ideal Workplace? infographic from Quill.com examines the best types of office environments to maximize your work performance.

Are you looking for a new position in a more fitting workplace? Or are you attempting to create an office setup that will maximize your employees’ skills? This infographic will help you match common work personality types with their ideal office spaces, from cubicles and open workspaces to co-working and work from home options.

Don’t know your work personality? Take the test.

Many companies are just beginning to realize that workplace design directly impacts employee performance, yet research shows that 3 in 4 U.S. workers are not in optimal workplace environments.

I love the connection to taking your own work personality test. This makes the infographic design personal and relevant to each individual reader. It's informative, but personal.

The illustration of each different workplace layout helps readers understand the differences almost instantly. It's a design with conceptual illustrations, but the statistics are also visualized, making them easier to understand as well. The personality color-coding is consistent throughout the design.

Great layout on the infographic landing page as well. Descriptive text with links, social sharing buttons, the full infographic and embed code at the bottom. The URL of the landing page is also included in the infographic image file itself, to make it easy to find the original, full-size version from sites that share but don't link. Everything needed to make it easy to find and easy to share.

Thanks to Cheryl for sharing the link!

Kitchen Trends to Consider and Avoid

Kitchen Trends to Consider (and Avoid) for Your Remodel is a comprehensive infographic from The Home Depot, covering the current kitchen design trends and top reasons to remodel your own.

A kitchen makeover can seem daunting and out of reach, but simple updates to cabinets, countertops, and colors can help an old and ignored kitchen feel fresh, fashionable, and, best of all, functional.

The following infographic from The Home Depot gives expert designer Kerrie Kelly’s tips on the hottest trends in new cabinets, countertops, colors and accents, and pointers for how to take your kitchen from drab to fab. Kelly’s design advice (don’t be afraid of color!) as well as warnings against what to avoid (go easy on the patterns), will give you all the latest in kitchen remodel trends. From the light, airy look of white cabinets, to the natural, organic look of elements like limestone and forestry, there is a trendy style for every taste.

And if keeping up with DIY television shows isn’t enough reason to get started, we’ve got three essential reasons for you to roll up your sleeves and get moving on your kitchen renovation. An updated kitchen affects your biggest investment — your home — as well as your quality of life. (Hint: Did you know that 90 percent of people report a greater desire to be home after a remodel?) Read the infographic for more reasons to get started, and visit this remodel planning guide for actionable ideas and advice.

Generally, I recommend against using photos in an infographic design, but the use of photos here is crucial to communicating the different design trends and kitchen looks. The combination fo photos with simple, one-color data visualizations works very well, and clearly communicates the different aspects of each design and function.

This is also a fantastic case-study in choosing an infographic topic that is compatible and related to your business. This isn't an advertisement for Home Depot, linking to specific products on their site. Instead, it's informative to consumers and actionable information they use to make their own purchase decisions. The information included is valuable to everyone that has a kitchen, and is likely to be shared often.

Thanks to The Daily Meal for sharing the infographic!

Power Hungry: The Rise & Fall of Electricity Consumption

Power Hungry is an infographic timeline showing the dramatic rise in energy consumption for average American homes and the recent change to a decline from energy efficient technologies and home automation. From The Home Depot and published on Inhabitat.

While the U.S. still has a long way to go with alternative energy, a new statistic has given us incredible hope for the future. For the first time in a century, energy consumption in U.S. homes has dropped. Since electricity first entered the home in the 1910’s, residential energy use has been steadily on the rise, but thanks to new developments in alternative technologies, our dependence on electricity is becoming more sustainable than ever before. From small changes, like the rise of circuit breakers and panels, to huge innovations like solar panels and home automation, the road to a cleaner, greener future has been a long — but worthwhile — process. Check out this fascinating infographic below to see how energy consumption has changed over the years.

I love my Nest thermostat and Philips Hue lights!

Overtime Pay Laws

The Call Center Employee Overtime Pay Laws infographic from overtimepaylaws.org is in informative design can help both employees and employers understand the rules when it comes to paying overtime.

Call centers employ thousands of workers throughout the United States. Many call center employees are required to perform tasks before a shift and after a shift that are not considered “on the clock” by their employer, such as booting up a computer or loading dialing software. This additional time spent on these tasks can give rise to an overtime pay lawsuit brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Our Call Center Overtime Pay Infographic Explains the important issues in these cases.

This design follows a simple story format with only a few steps:

1. What’s the Problem?
2. What’s the Impact?
3. What can the Reader do?

 I love that this design simplifies the information, and doesn’t try to include too much detail.

Design Client Engagement Poster

The Design Client Engagement Poster argues that a positive client experience can lead to a sustainable business. The poster separates the experience into 3 phases. The Pre-Service Phase is about client’s expectations, the Service Phase is about the client’s experiences, and the Post-Service Phase is about client satisfaction/dissatisfaction. This poster can be found on Design Client Engagement.com and is available for purchase for $25 + shipping here.

A positive client experience with your service can lead to more clients and ultimately, a sustainable business. A service does not exist in isolation; it is a string of experiences made up of touchpoints over time. Like a chain that will break at the weakest link, the client experience will break at the weakest touchpoint.

Cool visual explanation design created by Matt Pasternack from Nack Creative can be found on www.designclientengagement.com!

Can Washroom Soap Can Make You Sick?

Can Washroom Soap Can Make You Sick? from GOJO Industries brings to light a growing health risk in public restrooms everywhere.  Restaurants, offices, stores, hotels and more.  Those bulk soap dispensers (on the wall or built into the counter) that janitors refill by just pouring in more soap can easily become infected, and the bacteria can survive and grow inside the soap dispenser!  Yuck!

It’s hard to believe, but you could actually walk away with more bacteria on your hands after washing with soap from a refillable bulk soap dispenser in a public restroom. The contamination could even include fecal matter!

How could this be? Check out the infographic below to find out how this happens, discover smart alternatives, and see how you can help protect your family’s health by being a voice for change.

Designed by InfoNewt, this design walks the reader through a clear sequence of information.  It conveys a simple story with easy to understand information and clear sources for credibility.

• What’s the problem? 
• How does it happen?
• What’s the specific risk?
• What’s the solution to the problem?
• What can the reader do?

This is a persuasive infographic design that ends with a very specific call-to-action.  Sign the e-petition online to support the cause or forward the infographic to someone that can make a difference.

Common Causes of Tummy Aches in Children

Common Causes of Tummy Aches in Children from Tummy Calm is guide for all parents, because all kids get unexplained stomach aches at some point.   The infographic does a good job of clearly walking the audience through the potential symptoms, causes and remedies.

A tummy ache can be a frustrating symptom to understand in small children.  While it’s a common problem, there are a wide variety of potential causes.  This infographic reviews many potential causes of stomach ache and offers pros and cons to potential remedies.

Designed by InfoNewt, this infographic is much more visual explanation and less data visualization.  Health-related topics are also designs that you need to be careful with.  You want to provide good information to the audience, but you don’t want to be interpretted as advising medical care.  The design was carefully worded to be helpful to parents, but also reviewed by a pediatrician to make sure the information presented didn’t cross the line into providing medical advice.

What Guests Want...at Hotels

Hotels.com has released the 2013 version of their Global Hotel Amenities Survey, summarized in the infographic What Guests Want.  Part of an ongoing series from Hotels.com on their press site, the infographic takes a fun look at what hotel-stayers value most.  Apparently everyone wants free WiFi!

You just checked into your favorite hotel and are ready to enjoy all it has to offer. What kind of amenities inspire you? We surveyed travelers from all over the world to see what perks they valued most when spending a night away from home. 

The infographic is an additional content piece to the release of the complete survey, Global Travelers Want To Stay Connected And Comfy.  The Hotels.com press site is primarily targeted at an audience of hotel industry executives and the news media, and they maintain a dedicated infographics page.  The addition of the infographic to the press release helps to make the often dry survey data more engaging, and additional press releases were also published to highlight some of the hidden gems in the data: Danish Hotel Guests Most Honest; Americans Come In 23rd Place

Designed by Jeremy Yingling with InfoNewt, the infographic is essentially an executive summary of the much larger survey report that Hotels.com publishes each year.

I’ve posted a short, behind-the-scenes Q&A with Hotels.com about their experiences using infographics on the InfoNewt blog.

The Explosive Growth of Infant Prescriptions

ColicCalm.com has released a new infographic exploring the incredible rise in the number of infant prescriptions.    Education before medication, please explains the diagnosis, treatment and potential side effects of infant GERD.

Are Infant Reflux Drugs Worth the Risks?

The number of babies prescribed acid suppression drugs such as H2 blockers and PPIs grew 8-fold during 2002 to 2009, but fewer than 10% received any diagnostic testing for GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease). Some pediatricians are growing concerned that the “epidemic” of infant GERD cases is actually due to over-diagnosis, especially since clinical trials show acid blockers work no better than a placebo and can actually lead to short term and long term side effects. The FDA has not approved PPIs for treatment of GERD in children younger than one year.

Designed by InfoNewt, this design follows the 3-part story format really well.

1. Introduction: What is GERD? - background information
2. The Main Event: The Explosive Growth of Acid Blockers - the surprising statistic visualized
3. Conclusion: What’s the harm? - potential side effects

The topic is potentially controversial, so the design carefully sticks to only sharing the facts and research about infant GERD, and includes an exhaustive source list.  The other critical design elements are also included in the design, like the Creative Commons license and the infographic landing page URL so anyone can find the full-size original.