I Will Survive! A Guide to Survival and Pocket Knives

I Will Survive! A Guide to Survival and Pocket Knives is an infographic that can be helpful for both first timers and frequent buyers of knives.  This infographic can help you pick out the perfect knife based on your potential use of it. Whether it is a survival knife or pocket knife, there are certain features that you should keep in mind.

Whether you’re planning a camping trip, or just like to be prepared, a survival knife is a crucial tool to have. It can be used to cut, dig, split, and pry, to name just a few functions, and its compact, pocket-sized exterior makes it easy to bring with you anywhere you go.

There are multiple options when it comes to survival knives. A fixed blade knife is the most reliable; knives that have a bending joint tend to be weaker. Look for a knife with a full tang. These knives are safer because the blade and the handle are constructed from one continuous piece of metal.

Stainless steel blades are stronger and do not rust as quickly as carbon steel. However, carbon steel knives keep a good edge longer. Regardless of the steel you choose, aim for a solid knife that is between 3/16 to 4/16 of an inch thick.

Unlike a survival knife, a pocket knife tends to have multiple tools. The three most common types are jack, pen, and multi-purpose knives. A jack knife is the most basic of the three, usually consisting of one blade, and a simple hinge. A pen knife has between 2-3 blades and hinges at both ends of the handle. The tools on a multi-purpose knife vary, but the most popular functions include a can opener, scissors, and a screwdriver.

Whether you’re looking for a heavy-duty survival knife or an everyday pocket knife, consult this guide to pick the best one for your needs!

The infographic uses a good balance of words and appropriate graphics to help relay the information well. For the icons and illustrations, I would like to see stronger visuals to help differentiate the good features from the bad.

This infographic appears to have been created by FIX, but it's not clear if the other sites listed Art Of Manliness and Survival Cache were involved in the design or just the sources of information.

Found on Lifehacker

How to Make an Animated GIF Infographic

Eleanor Lutz has done some amazing design work with her company Tabletop Whale. She is known especially for her work creating animated infographics using animated GIF files. She has posted How to Make An Animated Infographic as a 2-part explanation that lays out her process in Photoshop (as an animated GIF file of course!).

Recently I’ve been getting a lot of emails asking for a tutorial on how to make animations. So this week I put together a quick explanation for anyone who’s interested. I archived it as a link on the menu bar of my website, so it’ll always be easy to find if you need it.

This is just a run-through of my own personal animation workflow, so it’s not a definitive guide or anything. There are plenty of other ways to make animations in Photoshop and other programs.

I’ve never tried making a tutorial about my own work before, so sorry in advance if it’s confusing! Let me know if there’s anything I wrote that didn’t make any sense. I’ll try to fix it if I can (though I probably don’t have room to go into detail about every single Photoshop function I mention).

I’m seeing more infographics as animated GIF image files online. Their advantage is that they are a self-contained image file that’s easy to share. No need for embed code or Javascript for readers to share the animation on other sites or social media.

I met Eleanor recently at the Malofiej Infographics World Summit, where she gave an amazing talk about her animated designs, her process, and even some discussion about when not to use animation. Check out the video interview with Eleanor by Visualoop at the conference:

Also found on VizWorld

Stop Being A Social Loser

Good advice from SumAll in their new infographic Stop Being a Loser: 12 Tips to Avoid Social Churn. 

Nobody loves cats more than I do. Chunks of my day are routinely lost looking at cat GIFs, videos, photos, anything to satisfy my admittedly unhealthy love for these furry companions. But even I have my limits.

If I’m browsing my Instagram feed and I see somebody post five photos in quick succession of their cat, that’s a surefire way to get an unfollow from me – and this is coming from somebody that dresses up their cat as a different Disney character every Halloween. So, step away from the hashtag, don’t even think about taking out that selfie stick, and check out this infographic for 12 tips on what you should and shouldn’t do on social media to get a loyal following.

I would have liked to see more data about social churn. This is a lot of text with illustrations for each point. Really good information, but I know SumAll has data to back these tips up.

How to Build a Website in 2015

Do you have plans to build a website soon? There are three major different workflow styles. How to Build a Website in 2015 from Rukzuk has shown the 3 most popular workflows so that you can pick the style that fits your skills.

There’s tons of different ways to get from client briefing to a live, working website. We’ve put the three most popular workflows up against each other. What’s your workflow of choice?

Simple clean design that does a good job of comparing the three different workflows without overwhelming the reader with too much information. Great job with the Creative Common license and complete list of data sources!

Found on Rukzuk.com

Life Hacks for the Modern Traveller

The Life Hacks for the Modern Traveller infographic from Direct Holiday Cottages provides you with some new travel tips for the connected traveller.

Here is an infographic that we have created providing a number of hacks to help you out on your holiday as well as some must have travel apps.

Busy design style, but that’s how people lay out their belongings before packing them all up in luggage. The font size is too small for the size of the infographic. 

When to Use JPEG, GIF, & PNG Image File Types

Image file types are confusing to many people, but the Know Your File Types: When to Use JPEG, GIF, & PNG infographic from WhoIsHostingThis? Is here to save the day. Too many people just JPG image file because they don’t understand the differences.

Trying to save space on image files?

It can be tough to know exactly which filetype is the best to use. If you save your image as the wrong type, you could end up blurring a beautiful photo, losing all the detail of your logo, or turning a transparent background black.

If you’d like to know exactly which is the perfect image filetype to use for which images, and save a lot of space and bandwidth in the process while maintaining a quality image, check out the handy reference below for the facts.

Great topic for an infographic! A complex, confusing subject that needed the infographic design treatment to simplify the information.

The URL to the infographics landing page should be included in the footer so readers can find the original, full-size version from sites that don’t link back to the original source.

Found on LifeHacker

How to Take Better Holiday Photographs

There are many moments in life that we love to capture with a photograph. The How to Take Better Holiday Photographs infographic from Sykes Cottages is a cheat sheet to help you get the most out of each photo you take. 

Holidays mean different things to different people. For some, they’re about discovering new cultures, unearthing ancient history and indulging in fine local cuisine; whilst for others, they’re a chance to lounge on the beach, read a few chapters from a book, and do very little. But whatever you get up to on holiday, one thing’s for sure: you’re bound to take at least a few holiday photographs.

Whether you’re a snap-happy amateur or a kitted-out professional, capturing your holiday is important. To help you rookies take holiday pictures you’ll be proud of, we’ve created a handy guide on how to take better holiday photographs- check it out below.

Great “How-To” infographic that’s easy to read and understand. The hand-drawn, watercolor look also helps visually imply that the complex information will be easy to understand.

Thanks to Leanne for sending in the link!

Top Ten Christmas Life Hacks

The Top Ten Christmas Life Hacks article and infographic from Kid Rated shares some great tips & tricks for the holiday season! Use condiment bottles for icing! Brilliant!

Here at KidRated we have plenty of suggestions of where to go with kids during the holidays. But there will always be those days around Christmas when the weather is awful, you have so much to do, or even you have eaten too much that even the idea of leaving the house would never cross your mind.

So, because at KidRated we really do like to help our brilliant readers and viewers, we have come up with our top ten Christmas life hacks to help you through the holidays. Kids will love doing them so much that you might as well put your feet up and enjoy the few minutes of peace and quiet. It won’t last long.

Clear design that’s easy to follow! I would have cut back on some of the text, but they needed to include enough of the directions for people to be able to follow on their own.

The infographic isn’t currently part of the article page, and that seems like a major mistake. The infographic should be helping to drive traffic and links to the article page.

Thanks to David for sending in the link!

Convert Your Street Bike into a Café Racer

 

Looking for a project? Have a street bike laying around? Then why not change it into a Café Racer?!? The Convert Your Street Bike into a Café Racer infographic from Fix gives some great before and after pictures of the conversion.

It was in the U.K. during the 1960s that a new style of motorcycle was born. Racing enthusiasts took their Triumphs and BSAs and added all sorts of racy-looking accessories and engine tuning components. Not content with a bike that just looked like a racer, the owners would often have impromptu races between the many cafés that dotted the English countryside.

Although café racers come in many custom forms, there are some commonalities that run throughout the design. With the lowering of the handlebars and changing of the gas tank and seat, the outline of the bike becomes more curved. It is important that the café racer is not clumsy in appearance. With parts brought toward the center of the bike, the bike becomes more visually aggressive. The gas tank and “humpback” seat (described below) mirror each other, accentuating the curved look.

Today, for the owner-rider wanting to replicate the ’60s look of a café racer, the good news is that there are many over-the-counter parts for the most popular bikes. Adapting some of these café racer parts to fit any bike is not out of the question but may require some basic engineering.

Great How-To design that makes everything visual! The sections are also broken up as separate images on the Fix.com site.

The infographic is missing any URLs back to the host site or the original infographic landing page.

Thanks to Jesse for sending in the link!

When is Best Time of Day to Mow Your Lawn?

Did you know that your lawn needs time after you cut it to “heal” before the sun goes down? When is Best Time of Day to Mow Your Lawn infographic from Your Green Pal gives you information about cutting your lawn at all times of the day.

People ask me all the time, “when is the best time of day to mow the lawn?”  So I wrote a blog post that outlines the best times of day and the worst times.   To date its our most shared and read article we have written for ur blog.  So I decided that the the question needed some more attention.

I created this handy illustration that shows you the pros and cons of mowing the lawn during the early morning, late morning, mid day, afternoon, and early evening.

You can mow the lawn any time of the day, but there is an optimal time to cut it.

Check out this illustration and plan your lawn care accordingly….

This is a great informative infographic that stays focused and only tells one story really well. It focuses on the best times of day to mow, and only that story. It’s also valuable information that people are likely to share.

In the footer, it would be nice to cite the source of their information. Why is this data about time of day credible? I realize that GreenPal is a lawn maintenance company, but I’ve never heard of them. Also, a copyright (or Creative Commons) license statement and a URL link directly to the infographic landing page would be helpful.

Thanks to Clayton for sending in the link!