Randy Krum's Blog, page 58

17 LinkedIn Profile Must-Haves

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17 LinkedIn Profile Must-Haves is a how-to infographic that walks the reader through optimizing their LinkedIn profile page.  Published by MarketMeSuite working with Maximize Social Business.com’s Neal Schaffer.

This year has been a big one for LinkedIn. With new features like the Creative Portfolio Display, you now have the ability to visually showcase your professional portfolio. But before diving any deeper with the latest add-ons, does your LinkedIn profile have all the elements that will help you rise to the top? This new infographic has all the tips you need to elevate your LinkedIn profile: 17 LinkedIn Profile Must-Haves!  Everyone can use great tips, so please share the LinkedIn love!

Great design using a mock LinkedIn profile as the background.  The callouts are clearly connected to the appropriate areas on the profile.  There’s a lot of text, but in this case I think most of it is necessary to clearly explain each point.  The reader can work off of this infographic without any additional research on other sites.

The statistics at the bottom should have been better visualized.  Mixing the 50.5% stat with the profile complete percentage visual from LinkedIn is confusing.  Also, it was difficult for me to find the original infographic landing page.  The footer should have the URL for readers to find the full-size original version of the infographic.  The source list text is too small to read too.

Thanks to Martin Mosler for post on Google+!

Two Years Without Steve Jobs: Has Apple Crumbled?

Has Apple Crumbled? is an infographic from WhoIsHostingThis.com that takes a close look at the business and financial results of the last couple of years under Tim Cook’s leadership.

With the passing of Steve Jobs in 2011, many tech industry experts were quick to predict that his company, Apple, Inc., would soon falter without its charismatic founder at the helm. Yet in the years since Jobs’ successor, Tim Cook, has taken the wheel, Apple has not only continued on, but flourished.

The design starts off well, but gets lazy towards the bottom with a number of statistics shown in text only, and not visualized.  Readers will perceive these values as less important and visually skim right over them.  With a mix of visualized data and text only data, the text only values are perceived as secondary information and often ignored.

I really like the character illustrations. They are minimal, but still easily recognizable.  The same goes for the product icons.  Minimal but easily recognizable.

The footer does a good job with sources and the company logo, but should have also included the URL link back to the original infographic landing page so readers can find the full-size original version.

Found on MacTrast.com

How to Setup Google Authorship in 6 Minutes

How to Setup Google Authorship in 6 Minutes is simple, clear, focused design from Brafton.

Google Authorship helps brand publishers personalize the custom content they post to their websites. Studies show that including an author’s byline and headshot in search engine results pages (SERPs) increases clicks and may eventually improve PageRank. 

Brafton’s “Content marketing, meet Authorship” resource outlines everything a savvy marketer must know to benefit from Google technology, and our accompanying infographic makes it even easier to setup Authorship on a given site. (Our downloadable resource includes a print-friendly version of this graphic!) Follow these six steps (in about six minutes) to be on your way to publishing online content using Google Authorship. Don’t forget to read our related blog: Why It’s Time to Embrace Authorship, and download our free resource.

This infographic design keeps it simple for readers by telling one short story really well.

Knowing that the PNG image file of the infographic will be shared on other sites, the design should have included the Brafton logo, a copyright statement, and the URL for readers to follow to find the original, full-size version of the infographic.  Not all bloggers are good about linking back to the original landing page.

Star Wars Episodes IV-VI Character Poster

The Star Wars Episodes IV-VI Character Poster from designer Wes Anderson is a fantastic visual tribute to the Star Wars series.  The limited run of 500 printed posters sold out in a few days on Spoke Art, but everyone can still admire the design online.

In 1978 my father took me as an excuse to go see that movie about silly robots and spaceships that everybody was talking about. I didn’t get much at that time, since I was very young, but what I do remember well is how much I enjoyed beginning my first geeky action figures collection that came right after the movie. My first figure ever was Luke Skywalker, a figure that got lost over the years. I’m still looking for it on my parent’s attic. Where are you Luke Skywalker?

With the time I became a fan, of course. As homage to that great moment of my life, here’s a new poster featuring (almost) every character of the first Star Wars trilogy in order of appearance. It is of course limited and numbered. If you want a copy, this link will take you to Spoke Art Gallery’s online shop where you can easily order one and receive it at your front door. We gave the mailmen specific orders to be dressed as Storm troopers during delivery, but they didn’t take it so well, so they probably won’t.

 

Found on Nerd Approved, Technabob, and the Fire Wire blog

Apple Release Patterns

Apple Release Patterns is a new personal project of mine, and you can find the full-size original versions on a new, dedicated landing page on the InfoNewt.com site.  Every few months Apple releases a new product update or redesign, and the rumors start flying about what the upcoming product will be during the preceding weeks.  For better or worse, those speculations are often based on what was released in the same timeframe the prior year.

This data visualization lines up vertical columns for each year, starting with 2007.  I decided that anything further back wasn’t really relevant to Apple’s current practices.  Each product release is then mapped onto the calendar, showing a pattern (or lack of pattern) to the product releases.  If the product announcement was separate from the actual release date, I mapped that date as well.

This data was ripe for a visualization.  When I tried to look at the historical dates of product releases, the information was scattered across multiple sites, confusing and difficult to gather.  Some information was contradictory, which required further investigation.  So, the data topic itself was a good target for a clear, easy-to-understand visualization.  However, the design with all of the products was too complicated visually to perceive any defining patterns.  So, I created separate versions that break out the products into 3 categories, and those are much easier for readers to see the patterns.

For iOS devices (iPod, iPad, iPhone and AppleTV) you can see the pattern shift in 2011 for most of the products to a Fall timeframe.  You can also see a recently consistent announcement date with the product release the following Friday.

For Apple’s laptop line, the MacBooks, you can see the MacBook Air has become a regular release during the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, and the MacBook Pro gets fairly regular updates twice a year, usually just to update the internal specifications.

The desktop Mac line doesn’t seem to show much pattern at all.  They might get an update each year, but the timing is erratic.  Sometimes they are part of WWDC, sometimes part of the Fall iOS events, and sometimes completely on their own.

I’m going to keep updating these on the landing page as Apple releases new products in the future (upcoming iPad Mini 2 Retina and Mac Pro still need to start shipping this year).  I want these to become a valuable resource every time the Apple rumor mill heats up about the next product announcement.  If you use the embed code on the Apple Release Patterns landing page, your site will also display the updates automatically as they become available.

This is version 1.0.  I have some ideas and improvements I want to make in future versions, but I would love to hear your thoughts as well.  Post any suggestions or feedback in the comments below.

Most Popular Pizza Chains Map Visualization

FlowingData has released a fantastic map visualization of the Most Popular Pizza Chains in the United States.

Most of the major pizza chains are within a 5-mile radius of where I live, so I have my pick, but I usually order from whatever place is closest to where I am. So it doesn’t matter if there are more Domino’s locations than Pizza Huts where I live. I just want my feeding time to come sooner rather than later, and if that place happens to be Pizza Hut so be it. (Although, if I’m not in a rush, I’ll go to the local sit-down place.)

This is the point of the map above, which shows the nearest pizza place within a 10-mile radius across the United States. Nice and clean data courtesy of AggData.

You can also see the major chains individually:

Found on LaughingSquid.

Now I’m hungry.

The History of 007

The History of 007 infographic from cabletv.com highlights the actors who have played Bond, the cars he drove, the guns he used, and the villains he famously fought to save the world.

Good blend of photos, illustrations and charts to tell the story of 50 years of James Bond.

Thanks to Dwayne for sending in the link!

 

 

Find The Best Group Exercise Class for You

24 hour fitness has created an easy to read flowchart to figure out the best group fitness class for your lifestyle in the infographic Find You Path To Fitness, a decision tree based on your wants.

A recent poll revealed 73 percent 24 Hour Fitness members see results in less than two months of participating in group exercise classes. With the popularity and effectiveness of group exercise, 24 Hour Fitness developed a fun, interactive infographic where readers can find out which group exercise class is the best fit for them, based on preferences and fitness goals. The Find Your Path to Fitness infographic, released today, leads readers through a series of questions and directs them to the group workout they’ll find most beneficial.

This is a great design. 

Visually appealing
Minimal text, the icons and diagram tell most of the story
Clear, focused message.  No extraneous data included, which keeps the design simple
Topic highly relevant to 24 Hour Fitness without being an advertisement
Long online lifespan.  This infographic will be informative to readers for years to come

The footer should include copyright information, and the URL link to the original infographic landing page so readers can find the full-size version.

Thanks to Alafair for sending in the link!

Highest Grossing Movie Franchises

The Highest Grossing Movie Franchises infographic from Buzzfeed makes good use of a stacked bar chart to put the various movie series into perspective. Design by John Gara.

Listed below are the most successful action/adventure movie franchises of all time. Each box represents an individual movie within that franchise, its width reflective of its contribution to the franchise’s box office success. We used worldwide box office totals from The-Numbers. com and adjusted them for inflation. All movies within each franchise are displayed chronologically from left to right.

Great design that really does a fantastic job of comparing the franchises.  I’m especially impressed that they took the time to adjust the data for inflation, a step that designers normally forget.  The color coding within each franchise is also easily explained with colored text under the stacked bars.  No need for a chart legend!

The franchises are sorted in descending order as shown by the bars, but the extra graphic design to the right of each bar is visually misleading.  To some, this will look like an extension of the data, but it’s just artistic, with the images spaced out so they don’t overlap.

The footer should have included both a copyright statement, and the URL link back to the original landing page so readers can find the original full-size version.

Found on GeekTyrant

How Many Jelly Beans Do You Have Left?

The Time You Have (in Jelly Beans) is a great visualization in video of how many days are available to each of us during our lives.  Created by Ze Frank from Buzzfeed.com.  What will you do with the jelly beans you have left?

Found on Elite Daily.  Thanks to Mary Kaye for the link!