Putting the Art in Article, Part II: IntermediART to Advanced SmARTy Pants

Great visuals can enhance your articles. We’ve already covered the basics. Now, let’s take your art to the next level.

Guest Post by Alicia Lawrence

Infographics communicate a lot of information, usually statistical in nature, in easy to understand graphics.

To create a great infographic, not only do you need a great designer, but also someone to put together the research and organize it into bite-size pieces that tell a story. Not all infographics tell a story, some may just be a list, but they usually all try to solve a problem or answer a question.

You don’t have to be an Adobe master to create an infographic. There are plenty of online tools tailored to making infographics, such as: Infogr.am, Visual.ly, and Piktochart. While most infographics tend to be long, in my experience, shorter infographics (or just simple graphics) are embedded by others more often.

Videos, webinars and podcasts are great content assets to keep an engaged audience.

Your company may have the resources to create stellar movies, such as Final Cut or webinar software. However, if you don’t, there are some free and inexpensive tools to help you get started. If you are looking to do a voice over or a podcast, consider Audacity for your audio needs. Depending on your computer, you can use Windows Movie Maker or Mac’s iMovie to edit your footage.

You may have never thought of comics for your company’s web content

But many businesses have discovered the benefit of a cartoonist on staff. HitReach does a great job creating and marketing their entertaining short cartoons. It doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary, but a little industry humor goes a long way. Don’t forget to include an embed code with a link back to your site to make sharing (and link building) easy!

Slideshows have become quite popular

They work well as stand-alone web content or even as an additional outline of a full length article. Forbes, along with many online magazines, has incorporated this content in most of their posts. There are many free online tools to create the kind of slideshow you want. For a unique moving presentation, try Prezi; or use Haiku Deck if you just want a modern looking slideshow.

Advanced SmARTy Pants

At this advanced level, you will need to know some Adobe products, JavaScript and basic HTML. Interactive web graphics can be anything from a moving infographic to an interactive map. ThingLink is the intermediate version of an interactive graphic. Google’s free web designer tool is comparable if you are looking for an online tool to help you get started.

You can do a lot with jQuery plugins. These handy little plugins can help you create anything from awesome moving typography to unique scrolling options. In order to implement a jQuery plugin, you can copy the HTML template from hundreds of different plugins online and then customize it to fit your site.

Are you using art to enhance your articles? What tools are your favorite? Please share in the comments below.

Image courtesy Alicia Lawrence, used with permission.

Alicia Lawrence is a Harrisburg-based writer and entrepreneur specializing in communication and health. Alicia works as a content coordinator for WebpageFX and is the founder of MarCom Land. For more about Alicia, visit her website or follow her on Twitter @Alicia_Lw.