Infographics are a visual way of providing a varying amount of information. As we see the word consists of two parts "info" - information, "graphics" - images, graphics.
One of the first who began to use infographics in their activities was the USA Today newspaper. Their project was launched in 1982. In just a couple of years, USA Today became one of the top five most read US newspapers. The Americans really liked the section with vivid images and comments. Information, therefore, reached the reader more efficiently and faster.
Nowadays, infographics are used in many fields of activity: from science to journalism. The main advantages and fundamental success of infographics are: clear and colorful presentation of information, emotional appeal to the reader, associative presentation.
Few people know, but the presentation of information in pictures came to us from ancient times. Pictures of animals or something else that an ancient person portrayed do not carry a semantic load, but if the image shows you go there, find a weapon, kill a mammoth, then it already represents information, and, therefore, is close to infographics. In ancient Egypt, people depicted their story as images on the walls of a temple or pyramids.
Infographic is great for providing almost any kind of information. Since 2011, the magazine "Infographics" has been published in Russia, in which all the news is presented using graphics and a small amount of text. Of course, it’s hard to imagine a whole book completely written with the help of infographics, because the book is read individually, each has his own idea of the plot and characters, in general, his own picture in his head. So we can say that infographics limits the reader’s imagination, but all this is quite relative. There is certain information that is easier and more effective to convey to the reader in infographics, but it is impossible to convey any information. Of course, these areas are very effective, but everything must pass the test of time.
