Does Coffee Really Make You More Productive at Work?

63% of Americans can't get through the work day without coffee. Does Coffee Really Make You More Productive at Work? infographic explores our cultural obsession with coffee. Turns out that coffee boosts your speed, not your talent so tasks that require quality over quantity do not benefit from caffeine. Toll Free Forwarding tells us how and when to drink coffee for it to be most effective. 

Could you start the day without your morning cup of coffee?   Latest research shows that 61% of Americans can’t get through the day without a cup of java, and even that’s 2% down from 2013.   Let’s face it, ever since the Europeans discovered coffee in the 1600s, it’s been an infatuation of the western world.  This magic brew that makes you vibrant and productive isn’t just an addictive substance, it’s a cultural phenomenon.  

Coffee shops are often credited as the birthplace of the Enlightenment, the American and French Revolutions, and even the Shins!   But what role does coffee have in the workplace?  Does it actually make us more productive or is it mankind’s most effective placebo? This infographic goes in-depth to explain just how coffee affects our daily routine, and how we can nurture our caffeine fixes without over-doing it.   So sit back with your bagel and morning brew, and enjoy the only Infographic that dares to ask: “Does Coffee Really Make You More Productive at Work?”

There's a lot of good information in this design, and it's organized nicely in sequence from top-to-bottom. Most of the information is visualized with good, related illustrations or icons.

It's odd that this infographic comes from Toll Free Forwarding, a company whose business has nothing to do with coffee. This is a challenge for relevance in the SEO world, and if this infographic becomes popular, it still may not have a significant benefit to the publisher because it will be promoting keywords unrelated to their business.

Thanks to Jennie for sending in the link!

Electrocardiography Basics

Electrocardiography Basics is a new infographic science illustration poster design by Eleanor Lutz at TabletopWhale.com for Nerdcore Medical. You can purchase the printed poster for $19.99 from Nerdcore Medical.

This week’s collaboration with Nerdcore Medical was a fun chance to try a more simple style than I usually use. For this poster I wanted to show 11 different kinds of heartbeat EKGs in a colorful design.

I wanted to highlight the unique shapes of each EKG wave as the focal point of the poster. After trying a few different things, I decided to try and make a digital heartbeat “sunrise,” where each of the EKG waves defined a specific colorful section of the poster. I thought it would show off the simple shape of the waves, and also work as a practical way to section off the different descriptions.

I ended up designing each line in Illustrator, and then importing the shapes to Photoshop to add textured shadows, color overlays, and text. More... 

Eleanor followed up this design with a behind-the-scenes blog Rough Drafts and Sketches post about what went into her design process, and specifically the color palette selection process (a beautiful infographic design itself!).

Diabetes: The Silent Scourge

Diabetes: The Silent Scourge is a great 2-page spread infographic designed by Adolfo Arranz for the Today newspaper in Singapore. A worldwide growing health issue!

An estimated 422 million adults globally were living with diabetes in 2014, compared with 108 million in 1980. The global prevalence (age-standardised) of diabetes has nearly doubled since 1980, rising from 4.7 per cent to 8.5 per cent in the adult population. This reflects an increase in associated risk factors such as being overweight or obese. Over the past decade, diabetes prevalence has risen faster in low- and middle-income countries than in high-income countries. Infographic spread page for Today newspaper.

Notice the creative use of half-circles proportionally sized to match the "By Region" data. This accurately represents the data, but only take half the space on the page!

The use of many different visualization methods also helps the readers understand that there are many different data sets being shown. Slopegraphs, rose diagrams, colored map, bar charts, stacked bar charts and the half-circles all shown different facts about the diabetes epidemic.

Great work Adolfo!

Go Green to Breathe Clean

Go Green to Breathe Clean infographic designed by GridSpace at HypothesisGroup proposes a way to solve "sick building syndrome" by adding plants to a room.

Indoor pollutants are found in the office and at home. They can cause a wide variety of serious respiratory and central nervous system problems. What to do? Plants have the answer with natural pollutant-fighting power. Which plants work the best to remove pollutants, and which pollutants are the most dangerous? Infographic content and design by GridSpace at HypothesisGroup. Follow on Instagram @hypothesisgroup. www.hypothesisgroup.com

The infographic is portrayed in a linear and simple way. It's in an easy to read but stylized font, and doesn't use any intense colors to distract the viewer. You can follow the information down the page without getting bored or distracted. 

It has an ideal amount of content. The creators chose to target only 5 common air pollutants that cause health risks, and then recommended 8 plants. Even with this amount of information they are still able to help the reader pick the ideal plant for their needs and environment. By using the circular graph, it's different and the reader can compare the similarities and differences between the plants rather quickly and easily.

It's interesting that they used LinkedIN's SlideShare as the platform to publish the original infographic and then embedded into their own blog post. 

Thanks to Majorie for sending in the link!

10 Ways to Fall Asleep on a Plane

Traveling can be exhausting, especially when you can't catch any sleep on the flight. However, Work the World has come up with not just one, but 10 Ways to Fall Asleep on a Plane! Whether you are traveling for business or for pleasure, you can be assured that your flight will be a restful one.

Trying to fall asleep on a plane can be one of the most frustrating experiences during your travels. After some serious research we decided to put an infographic together detailing the top ten ways to fall asleep on a plane. If you struggle to fall asleep in the air, read on for reassurance that it can be done.

Great informative infographic that uses a classic content marketing strategy of a Top 10 list, even if it's a little text heavy for a graphic. Icons and illustrations make each idea visual, which will help readers remember the information when they actually need it.

The footer properly included a Creative Common license, and detailed sources. The only thing missing is the URL to the infographic landing page so readers can find the original, full-size version on the Work The World site.

There's so much text in this one, I would make the additional recommendation to repeat the text on the infographic landing page below the infographic image itself. By also putting all of the text on the page, the search engines will be able to parse and index all of this good text data.

Found on Visual.ly

Busting Myths About Hand Sanitizers

The Debunking the Myths About Alcohol-Based Hand Sanitizer infographic from PURELL clears up some of the most common misconceptions about their products. 

All germs are bad germs, right? Not necessarily. Using hand sanitizer dries out hands? Some don’t, but PURELL® Advanced Hand Sanitizer won’t strip your hands of their natural moisturizers. There is much confusion today around antibiotics, antibacterial soaps and hand sanitizers, as well as their effectiveness and whether they contain harmful chemicals like Triclosan (which Purell does not). Learn the truth about alcohol-based hand sanitizers as 7 of their most common myths are debunked for good.

Infographics are a fantastic way for companies to help consumers better understand complicated products and issues. Health and safety are some of the top concerns from consumers, and the team at PURELL has done a great job here of addressing the top concerns and misunderstandings they hear about their products.

The use of the infographic as part of a larger marketing campaign is also a great use of the data and design assets that have been created. The larger campaign includes videos, a SlideShare presentation, the infographic and a downloadable PDF.

Sleeping Habits of the Rich & Famous

Even though we are all told that the recommended amount of sleep is 8 hours, everyone seems to function differently on the same amounts of sleep. The Sleeping Habits of the Rich & Famous infographic from Big Brand Beds introduces the sleep cycles of famous and successful people. I guess one sleep cycle doesn’t fit all!

We’re always told about getting a regular, solid eight hours’ sleep when it comes to being productive and successful, but not everyone follows this seemingly sound advice. Some of the most famous, successful and driven people throughout history have had some very strange sleeping habits - from micro-kips to sleeping in phases. We’ve got the oddest rich and famous sleeping habits in this new infographic.

There’s no way I could work with the staggered sleep patterns of Thomas Edison or Leonardo Da Vinci.

I like this design with simple time scales to show the sleep patterns and the series of circles to show the total number of hours per day. The visualization is repeated for each person, so once you understand the first one, you can easily understand the rest.

The design should have included the URL directly to the infographic landing page in the footer so readers can easily find the original, full-size version when they see the infographic on another site. Since they used a blog post as the infographic landing page, it will get shuffled down the blog page quickly as they post additional content. Don’t make your readers hunt for your infographic, or they will just give up and move on.

Thanks to Dave for sending in the link!

How Well Do You Know Your Shit?

Poop is not a pleasant thing to talk about. And studying it in your toilet after you excrete it is probably not part of your normal routine. However, the How Well Do You Know Your Shit? infographic from Health Works enlightens us about what our poop can tell us about our health.

With its less than enticing scent, and unattractive physique, nobody wants to give their poop a second glance. The general rule when it comes to poop is – you do the deed quickly, and flush immediately.

While it’s no bed of roses, the next time you’re in the toilet doing the Number 2, take a look at your work of art before you flush. The brown blob in the toilet bowl can divulge little secrets about your health condition, since it’s the product of the waste from your body.

You might curse us for coming up with this cute little infographic, but you really should know your sh*t better. Enjoy:

This is a really good informational infographic about a topic no one likes to talk about. A perfect topic choice from a health information site.

Thanks to Wen for sending in the link!

20th Century Death

20th Century Death infographic from Information is Beautiful, visualizes the main causes of death during the 20th century by grouping each cause into general categories and then branching off more specifically.

Visualizing the major causes of death in the 20th Century.

Originally a 6m x 2m commission by the Wellcome Collection as a companion piece to the London exhibition: ‘Death: A Self-Portrait – The Richard Harris Collection’ (Nov 2012).

Appropriate choice of color scheme since red has a negative association like death, and red, orange, and yellow are an analogous color scheme due to their proximity on the color wheel. I would have loved to see more graphic pictures like the ones used in the infectious disease group and the animal subgroup.

I think this is a great application of a bubble chart. The audience isn’t trying to make specific value comparisons, but instead should get a general feel for the large differences in the causes of death.

I love that David McCandless and his team has made his data transparent and available to anyone. The data values are posted in a public Google Spreadsheet available at http://bit.ly/20thdeath

Found on Information is Beautiful

A Comprehensive Look at the Ebola Virus

The newest outbreak of Ebola virus caused a lot of panic due to the lack of public knowledge of the disease. Buddy Loans has created A Comprehensive Look at the Ebola Virus infographic to increase (or maybe in this case decrease) the public’s exposure to the disease.

2014 has seen the worst outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in history, with WHO reporting more than 1,700 cases worldwide (as of August this year). In this infographic we take an in-depth look at the virus (formally known as Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever) and its history, origin, genus, transmission, symptoms, fatality rate, and treatment.

All information is correct as of mid-August 2014. Data sources include the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the BBC, The Guardian, and other high profile news outlets.

Infographics that explain anything health or medical related tend to be a little word heavy, due to their job of thoroughly and explaining complex information. This is a very clean design that implies authority and credibility, and uses a very simple red-blue color scheme. 

The chart in the History of Ebola Outbreaks section is interesting. They chose to only include the data of the biggest outbreak years instead of including every year on the timeline. This is a good method to use when you have a lot of specific data you want to highlight in a small space. If this infographic was focusing on a comparison between the good years and the bad years of Ebola, then including the data sets from smaller years would be appropriate.

The stacked bar chart is also a little tough to understand, and might have worked better as a clustered bar. The blue bar is the total number of reported cases, and the red bar is the portion of those cases that resulted in death. Not the normal way that people use a stacked bar chart.

I like that each section uses a different visualization method (bar chart, map, doughnut chart, etc.).  That makes it easier for the audience to read through clear separations between the sections.

The infographic landing page is also worth noting. On the original landing page, they correctly included some intro text, the full infographic, social sharing buttons and embed code for anyone that wants to post the infographic on their own site. They added a longer text description with more information about each data visualization. This gives reads additional incentive to view the original web page and provides additional text for the search engines to associate with the infographic.

Thanks to David for sending in the link!