Fast Company posts the (they call it “Controversial”, but I think it’s pretty obvious to anyone in the Visualization space) stance that “Infographics have jumped the shark”. Speaking about the recent deluge of beautiful pictures that combines lots of information, but in the end leave you wondering what you were supposed to be learning from it.
It seems to me that that’s exactly what an infographic does best: Wrap a bunch of not-so-interesting content in a bow that’s pretty enough that you take your attention off what’s inside and instead focus on the pretty bow. Oooohh … Pretty. Look at that chart. Look how big they made that number. Which makes me wonder what the real content of an infographic is. I suspect it’s something like: “Hey, we’re smart and with it and super in touch with what’s going on on the web, that’s how we knew all the kids were doing data viz.” That’s what the big companies who are throwing them up on the web are doing
