Infographics by their very nature are more endearing to any web user. In the recent years, creating powerful infographics has become a source of livelihood for many graphic designers and even amateur fine art students, globally. For the marketers and entrepreneurs, it is enabling data presentation to the customers in a engaging manner.

Taking the success story to newer height, the GIF infographics add new life to the term "responsive design" - a buzzword that the industry is glued to this year.

Infographics depict data in a visually appealing manner. However, an average viewer may not always get the insights at one go. Adding a little animated twitch to these infographics, the average viewers can now imagine the business owner/marketer talking it out to them in a more personal manner. It's almost data-on-the-move, an imagery that isn't static and thus is a natural attention grabber.

Jake O'Neal, an established graphic designer from Portland, Oregon shares the complex skill set required to perfect this aspect of adding animation for data visualization. Having designed such GIF infographics himself, his pointers about the whole process are very interesting:

- "Adding animation to a static graphic (read: a graphic that doesn’t really need it) can work as a gimmick to boost visibility. However, animations which repeat in a short, infinite cycle make the most compelling animated GIF subject matter. The Golf Swing is a good example. Mechanical things, movement, etc. These are often subjects that would be difficult to illustrate WITHOUT animation."

- "GIF animations can’t be stopped or started, so it’s important to keep annoying or distracting graphics to a minimum, or be certain they are necessary to tell the story. The "Trade Deficit" graphic pushes the limits in this realm, but I did that for a client who requested such things. My Cheetah graphic is a better example of riding the line between tasteful repetition and excessive movement."

- "GIFs don’t support gradients or shaded effects well at all. Such effects not only look bad but also amplify the image size exponentially. Keeping a simple, flat color palette will dramatically reduce file size. My Cheetah graphic is 25+ frames, and yet it weighs in at a cool 500kb. That’s smaller than many flat JPG graphics! I limited the graphic to only 2 colors. Even the cheetah spots in the background use a dotted effect to give the illusion of a lighter color while still using the same shade of black as the rest of the graphic. You can certainly use more than just 2 colors. However, it’s important to test-export the static image and see how image sizes are boosted with each color you add to the graphic."

Now that's something only a actual creator could have pointed out. Animated GIF infographics cerayinly need to be employed a lot more into the business niche for where data metrics and high-end data are sure to abound the customers.

Here are some interesting animated infographics that have set the ball rolling already.

1. Cheetah: Nature's Speed Machine 

Who doesn't know Cheetah is the fastest animal on the planet. However, to show a kid or any viewer this information in interesting manner, Jake's infographic puts data in motion.





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