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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Discover the foundation, power, and necessity of visual communication with this essential guide Visual communication has changed. It's gone from being an optional medium for relaying information to an important method for building connections and increasing understanding. We now use visual storytelling to help us establish and strengthen relationships, engage distracted audiences, and bring clarity to complexity. Killer Visual Strategies examines how visual communication has transformed how brands connect with their customers and colleagues alike. It looks at the growing audience demand for quality visual content and how organizations must meet this demand or risk being left behind. Killer Visual Strategies traces the history of visual communication and explores why it now plays an integral role in our daily lives. As Amy Balliett tells the story of this evolving medium, she naturally incorporates visuals, such as timelines and data visualizations throughout. In addition to providing actionable rules to follow for creating high-impact visual content, Balliett also explores the latest trends, including visual search, augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR). Then, she looks forward to what lies ahead in this dynamic field. The book's topics can benefit readers in a range of professions where visual content is now vital to sharing a message. * Learn best practices for visual communication * Gain inspiration from countless visual examples * Stay on top of the latest trends in visual communication * Understand visual communication for marketing, sales, design, HR, and more Killer Visual Strategies provides a clearer picture of the evolution of visual communication as a fundamental part of how a story is told.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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Table of Contents
COVER
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
THE ACCIDENTAL AGENCY
PART 1: VISUAL CONTENT IS KING
PART 2: 8 RULES OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
PART 3: YOUR VISUAL STRATEGY
APPENDIXES
THE ACCIDENTAL AGENCY
FIRST LESSON LEARNED:BEING IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME IS LUCK,NOT SKILL
THE WORST INFOGRAPHICS OF ALL TIME
MOVING FROM BAD TO KILLER
ENTER KILLER INFOGRAPHICS,THE AGENCY
PART ONE: VISUAL CONTENT IS KING
CHAPTER 1: ENVIRONMENTAL INFLUENCES AND THE RISE OF VISUAL CONTENT
ENTER A NEW MILLENNIUM AND THE RISING DEMAND FOR
VISUAL
CONTENT
2007: THE YEAR THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
A DECADE DRIVEN BY VISUAL MEDIA
CHAPTER 2: VISUAL CONTENT AND HUMAN NATURE
THE BRAIN SCIENCE OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
SPEAKING VISUALLY IS NATURAL—AND NOW, IT'S EXPECTED
CHAPTER 3: QUALITY VISUAL CONTENT REIGNS SUPREME
SO: BEAUTIFUL DESIGN REIGNS SUPREME?
TODAY'S AUDIENCES HAVE TWENTY-FOUR-KARAT-GOLD EXPECTATIONS
PART TWO: 8 RULES OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
CHAPTER 4: RULE 1: ALWAYS THINK ABOUT
CON
-TEXT (IT'S A
CON
WHEN THERE'S TOO MUCH TEXT)
EXERCISE: HOW LONG WILL COMPREHENSION TAKE?
CHAPTER 5: RULE 2: SMALL VISUAL CUES HAVE A LARGE IMPACT
TWITTER'S INFAMOUS STAR-VERSUS-HEART WAR OF 2015
EXERCISE: EMBRACING UNIVERSAL IMAGERY
CHAPTER 6: RULE 3: THERE'S NO GOLD AT THE END OF THAT RAINBOW
CHOOSING THE RIGHT COLORS FOR YOUR VISUAL CONTENT
EXERCISE: DO THESE COLORS MATTER?
CHAPTER 7: RULE 4: GOOD VISUAL STRATEGISTS ASK “WTF?!”
WHAT'S IT SAYING?
EXERCISE: FONT ASSOCIATION IN ACTION
CHAPTER 8: RULE 5: AVOID THE STIGMA OF STOCK
THE GROWING AVERSION TO STOCK IMAGERY
IT'S NOT JUST STOCK PHOTOGRAPHY: STOCK ILLUSTRATIONS POSE RISKS TOO
EXERCISE: WHEN STOCK IMAGERY IS ALL YOU CAN USE
CHAPTER 9: RULE 6: STAND OUT AT THE COCKTAIL PARTY
YOUR AUDIENCE WANTS CUSTOM, PERSONALIZED CONTENT
EXERCISE: WHICH APPLE APPEALS MOST TO YOU?
CHAPTER 10: RULE 7: USE PROPER DATA VIZ THROUGHOUT
CASE IN POINT: DON'T SKIP THE SCALE
ADHERE TO THE COMMON LANGUAGE OF DATA VIZ
DRESSED-UP DATA VIZ CAN DO MORE HARM THAN GOOD
EXERCISE: TOP DATA VISUALIZATION MISTAKES TO AVOID
EXERCISE RESULTS: HOW TO CORRECT DATA VISUALIZATION MISTAKES
CHAPTER 11: RULE 8: COMMIT TO THE TRUTH AND PROVE IT
TRUST IN BRANDS CONTINUES TO DECLINE
EXERCISE: PROPERLY SOURCING INFORMATION
CHAPTER 12: RULES ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN
BREAKING RULE 1: ALWAYS THINK ABOUT CON-TEXT
BREAKING RULE 3: THERE'S NO GOLD AT THE END OF THAT RAINBOW
BREAKING RULE 4: GOOD VISUAL STRATEGISTS ASK “WTF?!”
BREAKING RULE 5: AVOID THE STIGMA OF STOCK
BREAKING RULE 6: STAND OUT AT THE COCKTAIL PARTY
BREAKING RULE 8: COMMIT TO THE TRUTH AND PROVE IT
PART THREE: YOUR VISUAL STRATEGY
CHAPTER 13: YOU CAN'T CREATE GREAT CONTENT WITHOUT A GREAT TEAM AND PROCESS
CREATING GREAT VISUAL CONTENT IS LIKE BUILDINGAHOUSE
FINDING YOUR CREATIVE CONTENT TEAM
CHAPTER 14: GOING THE FREELANCE ROUTE
RATE OF PAY IMPACTS QUALITY OF SERVICE
FINDING THE RIGHT FREELANCER FOR YOU
CHAPTER 15: BUILDING AN IN-HOUSE TEAM
THE CHALLENGES OF BUILDING A GREAT TEAM
FINDING A TRUE VISUAL COMMUNICATOR
THE COST OF IN-HOUSE
POST-SCRIPT
Appendix A: TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
VISUAL COMMUNICATION
INFORMATION VISUALIZATION
VISUAL STORYTELLING
VISUAL IDENTITY
VISUAL LANGUAGE
VISUAL STRATEGY
VISUAL COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN
Appendix B: TOOLS
THE ADOBE CREATIVE CLOUD
LINKEDIN LEARNING AND LYNDA.COM
THE NOUN PROJECT
LOST TYPE
DRIBBBLE
COLOURLOVERS
Appendix C: PRODUCTION TIME ESTIMATES
Appendix D: A TIMELINE OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
RESOURCES
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
INDEX
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT
List of Illustrations
THE ACCIDENTAL AGENCY
Figure AA.1 []
Figure AA.2 []
Chapter 1
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Chapter 2
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Chapter 10
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Figure 10.22
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1
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Figure 11.7
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1
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Figure 12.11
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Figure 12.13
Figure 12.14
Figure 12.15 []
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1
Chapter 14
Figure 14.1
Chapter 15
Figure 15.1
Figure 15.2
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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KILLER VISUAL STRATEGIES
Engage Any Audience, Improve Comprehension, and Get Amazing Results Using Visual Communication
Amy Balliett
Foreword by Guy Kawasaki
Copyright © 2020 by ReelRandom LLC. All rights reserved.
Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the Web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at (800) 762-2974, outside the United States at (317) 572-3993 or fax (317) 572-4002.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is Available:
ISBN 9781119680222 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781119680321 (ePDF)
ISBN 9781119680260 (ePub)
Cover and Interior Design: Killer Visual Strategies
Cover Illustration: Killer Visual Strategies
Author Photo: Jennifer Findlay
FOREWORD
Figure F.1 [ ]
I first came across Killer Visual Strategies, the visual communication agency founded by Amy Balliett, in 2011. That year represented a critical juncture—not just for the fledgling Seattle company, which was just getting their footing in the market, but in the history of visual communication. Smartphone usage was rapidly expanding. A social media platform called Instagram was fresh on the scene. More and more of our information came from nontraditional sources like Facebook and YouTube. And the content we were sharing was overwhelmingly visual.
Amy had launched her company, then called Killer Infographics, to meet a fast-growing demand for infographics from organizations in just about every industry. In fact, Killer first came to my attention when they designed an infographic—now a classic in marketing circles—that pitted me against fellow marketing guru Seth Godin in a tongue-in-cheek standoff (Figures F.1 and F.2). The way in which this and other pieces of visual content—including a motion graphic adaptation of the infographic in 2012—spread virally across the web piqued my interest. These new types of visual content were perfectly suited for posting and sharing on emerging platforms. And people were engaging with them much more than they were with text.
Our world is transforming faster than ever, and visual communication is at the heart of that transformation. Ever since I worked for Steve Jobs as an evangelist for Macintosh, and later for Apple, I knew that good design was fundamental to business success. It wasn't just about the words we used—it was about how we told our story as a company. And that story was about envisioning a better future—with an emphasis on “vision.”
For any individual or company looking to make a real difference, storytelling is not just powerful—it's essential. In my career as a venture capitalist, I've heard more pitches than I can count that used hot-button words and jargon, but failed to really deliver a sense of the company's value. To succeed, every organization needs to focus on their purpose, not their product. They must be clear on how they will contribute to a better, brighter future. And communicating that purpose requires visual storytelling.
That's why, in 2014, I became the chief evangelist of Canva, an online service whose goal was to make graphic design easy for people without access to a dedicated design team. Visual content has become intrinsic to how we all communicate, and I knew there was potential in a company that could facilitate such communication. As it turns out, I was right—demand for visual content from consumers and brands alike seems to be growing exponentially. We now expect brands to communicate visually; anything less is not enough.
Today's marketing is therefore visual by necessity. Quality visual communication—from motion graphics to interactive experiences to social-media micronarratives—is no longer an option for brands. Whether you're taking a photo of your office, preparing a pitch deck for investors, or designing an ebook, you're putting content out in the world that represents your brand. And it needs to represent your brand well.
Visual content doesn't just offer a way for you to build brand recognition. High-quality content will demonstrate your company's commitment to delivering real value. And, perhaps most importantly, the right visual identity for your business will empower you to tell your story in a way that attracts and retains your audience's attention. Because in the end, no brand will succeed without building meaningful relationships with customers and potential customers. Visual communication shows them how their story aligns with yours and envisions what you can accomplish together.
More and more, I'm seeing brands embrace visual content in their internal communication efforts as well. From video training and interactive professional- development modules to company newsletters and boardroom presentations, visual content is driving meaning-making in every aspect of our lives. Branding, meanwhile, is now a company-wide endeavor. Everyone from the CEO to the summer intern should know what your brand identity is and why.
A decade after Killer Visual Strategies was founded, this agency remains at the forefront of innovation in visual communication. They produce more types of visual content than I can count, but they offer much more than that. The Killer team specializes in producing visual content that achieves our goals as marketers. After all, visual marketing is only successful when it's on-message, channel-optimized, and audience-centered.
At the helm of this ship, Amy Balliett has become a global leader in visual communication and visual content marketing, and I can think of no book right now that's more relevant to marketers, designers, and brand leaders than the one you hold in your hands. No matter where your story takes you, this book will be a worthy touchstone along the way.
—Guy Kawasaki
Chief Evangelist of Canva
Figure F.2 [ ]
INTRODUCTION
I am not a graphic designer. I am a visual strategist.
This may seem like a small detail, but it's an important one to get out of the way at the onset of this book. Like a food critic who isn't a chef, my skills do not lie in the execution of design, but rather in a unique understanding of how the ingredients of good design come together to create exceptional visual content that is far more palatable than simple eye candy.
While this book will include myriad takeaways for designers, visual communication should be mastered across all avenues of an organization. In fact, this book is made for business professionals of all kinds. It is as much for marketers, brand-builders, educators, and communicators as it is for designers.
This isn't to suggest that designers are not a necessary part of the equation—far from it. If you're like me, and graphic design is not your strong suit, then you'll still need to find a great design partner to fully realize the lessons gleaned from this book.
If you don't have that partner yet, then this book will give you all of the tools and understanding you need to find the right designer or agency partner for your needs. More importantly, it will help you own the outcome of that design work and forge a strong client-vendor partnership to ensure success in the work you do together.
We have entered a world in which 91 percent of today's audiences prefer visual content over any other form of content, according to Demand Gen Report. This means that anyone charged with communicating information in any organization, whether internally or externally, must rethink how they deliver that information. Visual communication, when properly executed, has the power to greatly increase engagement, comprehension, and follow-through. So if your goal is to meet the visual content demands of your audience, then this book is for you!
With the help of this book, you'll learn how to connect with your target audiences in new and unique ways. You'll gain insights into the shared instincts that subconsciously drive our impressions of brands today. And you'll learn practical strategies to harness the power of visual communication, thus revolutionizing your own content and brand strategy.
You don't need to be a graphic designer to read this book, but when you're done, I hope you will proudly call yourself a visual strategist!
HOW TO READ THIS BOOK
This book is not meant to be an academic beast of information about the scientific application of visual communication and storytelling. There are dozens of books out there that already fill that need. Instead, this book is actionable. It is written for all levels of understanding with the goal of being easy to digest so that you're empowered to take immediate action within your organization.
This book is broken into three parts, each building on the last without being dependent on it. This means you can start reading at any part of the book; that way, you can gather the information that you find most relevant to your immediate needs. Of course, if you choose to read it cover-to-cover, you'll gain an even more thorough understanding of the subject matter.
THE ACCIDENTAL AGENCY
To lay the foundation for this book, I begin with the story of how my company, Killer Visual Strategies, got started. This story offers a setting for the narrative that follows.
PART 1: VISUAL CONTENT IS KING
To prepare you for the lessons ahead, this section provides critical context that will be applied to the rules outlined in part 2 of this book. It includes a thorough overview of the environmental factors that have contributed to our present-day consumer demand for visual content by summarizing key moments in recent history that have shifted audience expectations.
Part 1 continues by delivering insights into key elements of audience psychology that inform visual communication today, along with some examples of the varying use cases for visual strategy. This section concludes by exploring the expectations and motivations of audiences today and how this impacts their perception of quality in visual media.
PART 2: 8 RULES OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION
The second part of this book is intended to be both a practical reference guide and a deeper dive into each topic, allowing for either continued reading or immediate application, depending on your needs.
Every chapter in part 2 explains a key rule in visual communication design. You can read these chapters in any order, and do not need to read them all the way through to learn how to apply each rule to your own visual content. Each chapter is broken into three distinct parts that can be read independently of one another or together, depending on how deep you want to delve into the topic. Those parts are as follows:
Rule:
Each chapter will open with a rule about visual communication followed by a thorough explanation of why the rule exists.
Exercise:
To best exemplify the rule and put it to the test, an exercise continues the chapter. These exercises do not require knowledge of design software, but from time to time will require you to be near a computer and utilize free online tools.
Key Takeaways:
To sum up the chapter, I'll share a number of conclusions. If you're short on time, start by reading the key takeaways, which provide concise steps that you can apply to your visual content immediately, along with a summary of the reasoning behind each rule.
You may choose to read just the rules in part 2 and save the exercises for another time. Or you may choose to only read the key takeaways and start applying the lessons to your own content strategy. Ultimately, this section is presented in a way that allows for quick referencing throughout the content development process.
PART 3: YOUR VISUAL STRATEGY
The final narrative section of this book will draw from the lessons in parts 1 and 2 to define a process for developing great visual content. You'll also learn about the different types of teams you can build to achieve your visual strategy. At the end of each chapter, you'll again find a set of key takeaways. This section is designed to be read from beginning to end to obtain full context, but the key takeaways can also act as easy points of reference for daily use.
APPENDIXES
This book concludes with appendixes comprised of multiple quick-reference materials. You'll find a breakdown of key terms used in visual strategy; tools used for developing great content; production-time estimates for different types of content; and a detailed time line that will take you through the history of visual communication.
Finally, if you ever feel lost, take advantage of the detailed index on the final pages. These will help you find answers quickly so that you can start meeting today's demand for visual content immediately!
Any images in this book accompanied by this symbol [ ] can be viewed at higher resolution at killervisualstrategies.com/book.
THE ACCIDENTAL AGENCY
It's fine to celebrate success, but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure."
—Bill Gates
In 2010, during the final weeks of June, I designed my first infographic. I had just left the comfort of a six-figure job in marketing for the unpredictable world of startup life. I had worked at startups before, but this was the first time I was truly venturing out on my own with nothing to protect me but a slim safety net of savings.
While my then–business partner and I had been working on launching our business for much of 2009, we had both continued working full-time jobs to keep us afloat. But in June of 2010, I took a leap of faith and quit my day job running search marketing for a directory of colleges. It was the first time that I could realistically dedicate my full attention to our business at the time, an e-commerce software-review service called ZippyCart.com.
ZippyCart was one of many websites we owned, and it was our most successful. We had launched it in 2009 and grown it to a sizeable monthly income as a review and affiliate website. Our goal was to create a handful of other affiliate websites and use content marketing to grow their audience.
I was extremely excited about what was possible within our planned business model. A world of opportunity was in front of me, but financial security—and the peace of mind that came with it—had been thrown out the proverbial window.
I had been the breadwinner of my household. Two years prior, I'd committed to a Seattle mortgage that secured me just 900 square feet of living space for an investment that would have bought me a nine-thousand-square-foot mansion in my hometown of Cleveland. The country was beginning to rebound from the 2008 financial crisis and the cost of living was going nowhere but up. With the weight of the world (or at least my family's financial livelihood) bearing down on me, I needed a disruptive marketing tool that would help grow ZippyCart into a worthwhile brand so that I could provide a reliable income again.
Enter the infographic: the one piece of content that I could not convince my previous employer to even test. I was certain that an infographic would help put ZippyCart on the map, and was willing to bet three crucial weeks of non-revenue-generating productivity on it.
A few weeks later, it was clear that the investment of my time had paid off in spades. The infographic, entitled “The History of E-commerce” (Figure AA.1), delivered more than a thousand inbound links to our website. We moved to page 1 of Google search results for multiple coveted terms, including our target key phrase, “shopping cart reviews.” We also saw our PageRank score increase almost overnight.
I was certain that I had mastered a new medium of content marketing, and I was hooked! I quickly jumped at the opportunity to create another infographic, this time on the topic of Google's PageRank methodology. My next infographic (Figure AA.2) took only a weekend for me to produce and led to two thousand inbound links!
I was on cloud nine and nothing could stop me. Infographics were my new secret weapon, so I quickly immersed myself in this burgeoning new world of content strategy.
Figure AA.1 []
Figure AA.2 []
FIRST LESSON LEARNED:BEING IN THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME IS LUCK,NOT SKILL
Fueled by an inflated ego, I began sharing my designs with more experienced entrepreneurs and industry experts. While some chose to remain impartial and offered positive reinforcement, others understood that silence or compliance would only hurt me. One tweet from a business leader I highly respected stood out above the rest and changed everything for me.
Rand Fishkin, founder and CEO of Moz (then SEOMoz), responded to my Google PageRank infographic with four simple words: “That's not an infographic.” Nothing more, nothing less.
With those four simple words, I was deflated. What did he mean—my design wasn't an infographic? I had combined images with text and sized the content in the same way other infographics were delivered online. What could I have possibly done wrong?
I considered shrugging off the comment. After all, with thousands of backlinks, I had hard data backing up my success. But Fishkin had made a name for himself by staying ahead of trends and predicting how those trends might impact content marketing best practices. I, on the other hand, had made a living following the advice of Fishkin and people like him. I wanted to dig in and defend myself, but I also wanted to heed the words of someone whose thought leadership had guided much of my marketing career up to that point.
After stepping away and reviewing the infographics (Figures AA.1 and AA.2), it became clear that Fishkin was right. They weren't infographics. If all of the text disappeared from these images, they would no longer make any sense. So how could the graphics possibly be depicting information? And yet, more importantly, how was it that those designs had led to so much success?
The answer, simply put, was that I was in the right place at the right time. Visual content marketing was very new at the time. In fact, from 2008 until early 2012, a marketer could use the word “infographic” to describe almost any piece of visual content and get traction for their efforts. It was because of this that I was stuck in a positive feedback loop—one that had just been throttled by a single tweet.
Fishkin was right. What I had released to the world as “infographics” were anything but. Instead, they were paragraphs of information juxtaposed with imagery that only made sense if you read the text. They were poorly designed and riddled with mistakes, and today they live on multiple lists of the worst infographics of all time!
THE WORST INFOGRAPHICS OF ALL TIME
Now that you've had a moment to look at the “infographics” in question, you likely see what Fishkin saw. If you don't, it's OK. By the end of this book, you'll be able to look at myriad types of visual content and quickly discern what works and what doesn't.
Sometimes you have to learn what not to do before you can truly understand how to change your approach and do things right. Because of this, in future chapters, I will reverse-engineer a number of designs to break down all of the issues within them.
These two designs, for example, taught me a great deal about what not to do when developing a visual communication strategy, while also helping to lay the foundation for the award-winning visual content that I will be sharing in this book. At a high level, here are just a few key takeaways I gleaned from my first two projects:
Great visual communication relies on tools like Adobe Illustrator.
For my first two projects, I relied on Adobe Photoshop because it was a tool I felt more comfortable with. Illustrator would have been a far better choice due to its agility and robust toolset. More on this later, but for now it's important to note that Photoshop should be used to color-correct and adjust
photos,
just like its name implies.
A reading assignment is not an infographic.
If you have to read the text to understand the visuals, it's not true visual communication.
Stock imagery is not the answer.
Great visual communication relies on a skilled illustrator creating custom design, not a mix of stock illustrations and imagery.
A strict process should be followed to create great visual content.
Without one, you cannot predict timelines, let goals guide decisions, or deliver a narrative that speaks to your target audience.
Great visual content takes time
—
but not forever.
One weekend and three weeks are both incorrect timelines to develop this type of content.
These points, and more, will be explained in-depth in part 2 of this book.
MOVING FROM BAD TO KILLER
So how did I go from developing bad infographics for a completely different business to building one of the country's leading visual communication agencies? Partly by accident, to be honest.
Within a month of my Google PageRank infographic, ZippyCart was still benefiting from the associated marketing campaign. If this was the success of a bad design, what could happen with a good one? My business partner at the time was wondering the same thing. In fact, he, more than me at the time, saw the power of infographics and wanted to capitalize on them.
It was because of this that, one August morning of that same summer, he came to me with a domain name and an idea. KillerInfographics.com would be the go-to destination for visual content online. The plan was to create a directory of infographics and provide reviews to build credibility into the directory. This site would then bolster our main business model and add to our portfolio of websites.
