Visual storytelling is fast, friendly and powerful. Use infographics to help more people understand vital issues - such as new schemes to make it harder to vote.
Infographics pack a lot of information into an appealing visual that's easy to share.
This blog explains different forms of visual storytelling - memes, GIFs, videos, infographics and StoryMaps. How to chose the right tool for your cause or campaign and DemLabs's five free apps for visual storytelling.
Republican Voter Suppression Playbook
How this infographic was created
- Details on voter suppression schemes were researched from sources including the NY Times, Washington Post, Brennan Center and Democracy Docket. These resources are cited in the infographic along with links for more details.
- The content was summarized to be skimmed in seconds or used as a launchpad for further research.
- Images licensed from Political Cartoons were added for visual appeal and a touch of humor.
- A DemLabs team including Chisato Kimura, Chloe Bollinger and Quincey Tickner created this infographic using Infogram, a free app.
This infographic can be freely shared with this link or embedded in a website with this line of code:
"<div class="infogram-embed" data-id="faecd717-4539-44e1-bc31-70ee4b12b3c6" data-type="interactive" data-title="Voter Suppression Playbook">!function(e,i,n,s){var t="InfogramEmbeds",d=e.getElementsByTagName("script")[0];if(window[t]&&window[t].initialized)window[t].process&&window[t].process();else if(!e.getElementById(n)){var o=e.createElement("script");o.async=1,o.id=n,o.src="https://e.infogram.com/js/dist/embed-loader-min.js",d.parentNode.insertBefore(o,d)}}(document,0,"infogram-async");"
Why we like Infogram
- The app is free. Premium versions offer additional features
- Includes templates and graphics that get you started quickly
- It's online and several people can work on an infographic at the same time
- Infographics can be shared online or downloaded
- They are easy to embed in a website
- The infographic can be updated with new details at any time
- It includes analytics on how many people have see your infographic
Choose the right visual storytelling tool
Choose the right app based on the amount of information and how broad your audience is and these considerations:
- Will the content have to be updated? If so, choose a format like an infographic or StoryMap that is easy to revise. Memes, GIFs and videos are hard to update once you've published them.
- What type of device (phone or laptop) will people most likely see your content?
- Is your content interactive? Will people use it to search for information that is relevant to them. Memes, GIFs and Videos aren't interactive. Infographics and StoryMaps encourage the reader to interact with the content and find the details that related to them.
- What type of information will you be sharing? Images, GIFs, graphs, videos, maps, sounds? DemLabs favorite free apps for visuthea lre storytelling.
DemLabs favorite free storytelling apps
Memes: CANVA
Ideal for creating graphics quickly and includes a library of stock symbols and images.
GIFs: ezGIF
Create, optimize and scale GIFs with this free app.
Videos: Lumen5
An easy to use app to create and edit videos for your campaign or cause. It includes hundreds of professionally made video clips and soundtracks that you can use as building blocks to create and caption your own video.
Infographics: Infogram
Create data rich graphics that can be downloaded or shared online.
StoryMaps: ArcGIS StoryMaps
The perfect tool when you have a story to tell that involves maps, data, images and videos.