How to build an infographic library for your brand

In today’s digital world, content is king. And among the most engaging and shareable content formats are infographics. Infographics, with their ability to present complex data visually, have become a staple in marketing, education, and communication. Whether you’re explaining a complicated process, telling your brand story, or sharing industry statistics, infographics make it easier for your audience to digest and retain information.

However, the real challenge isn’t just creating one infographic—it’s creating an infographic library that continuously supports your brand’s communication goals over time. An infographic library is a collection of templates, visual assets, and infographic designs that are consistent with your brand’s identity and that you can reuse and adapt for various purposes. When effectively curated, it can save time, improve consistency, and enhance brand storytelling.

In this guide, we will walk through the process of building a comprehensive and functional infographic library for your brand, covering everything from strategy and design to maintenance and scaling.

Table of Contents

Why Build an Infographic Library?

Before diving into the steps, let’s explore the benefits of having an infographic library for your brand:

Consistency: A well-organized library ensures that all your infographics are aligned with your brand guidelines, maintaining consistent visual identity (fonts, colors, icons, and logos). This consistency helps reinforce your brand’s presence and builds recognition across all touchpoints.
Time Efficiency: Instead of starting from scratch each time you need a new infographic, a library allows you to adapt pre-designed templates or components. This can significantly reduce production time and costs, especially if you are creating infographics regularly.
Flexibility: A library provides flexibility. You can modify and repurpose infographics for different formats, audiences, or platforms. This way, the same infographic can be adapted for use in blog posts, social media, email marketing, presentations, or even printed materials.
Improved Collaboration: A central library of infographics can serve as a shared resource for your team. Whether it’s marketers, content creators, or designers, having a repository of assets enables seamless collaboration and ensures everyone is working with the same visual language.
Long-Term ROI: By investing in building an infographic library, you create an asset that can evolve and scale over time. Instead of constantly creating new assets, you’re leveraging previous work and can continuously adapt and reuse it as your brand grows.

Define Your Brand’s Visual Identity and Infographic Needs

The first step to creating an infographic library is establishing your brand’s visual identity. The purpose of your library is to reinforce your brand’s image, so understanding the key elements of your brand design is critical.

Key Elements to Define:

Brand Colors: Choose primary and secondary brand colors that reflect your company’s personality and ensure they’re used consistently across all infographic assets. Typically, you’ll use your primary brand colors for background or headline elements, while secondary colors can be used for accents, data points, and charts.
Typography: Choose one or two fonts that align with your brand. Consistent typography helps create visual harmony and ensures that your infographics are readable. Pair a bold or heavy typeface for headings with a lighter, more neutral typeface for body text.
Logo and Branding Elements: Your logo should be featured in each infographic, ensuring that your brand is always recognizable. Define how and where to place it (e.g., at the bottom corner, top center). Any other branding elements, like taglines or specific design flourishes (such as borders or icons), should also be standardized.
Iconography: Icons play a big role in infographics by visually breaking down complex concepts. Define a set of icons that align with your brand’s style and tone. For example, if your brand is more playful, you might opt for rounded, colorful icons. If your brand is more formal, you may want minimalist or line-based icons.
Image Style: If you incorporate stock photography or illustrations into your infographics, define the style of images to use. Ensure that the imagery complements the overall aesthetic of your brand and doesn’t detract from the infographic’s main message.

Understand Your Content Needs

Next, consider the specific types of infographics that will serve your brand. Your needs might vary depending on the industry you’re in, your target audience, and the content you frequently produce. Some common types of infographics include:

Statistical Infographics: These focus on presenting data, statistics, or research in a digestible format.
Process Infographics: These are great for illustrating workflows, step-by-step processes, or instructions.
Comparison Infographics: These help compare two or more items side-by-side.
Timeline Infographics: Useful for showing historical data or the evolution of a product, service, or idea over time.
List-Based Infographics: These focus on presenting a list of items, steps, or tips.
Geographical Infographics: Often used for mapping out regions, cities, or countries with specific data points.

By understanding the types of infographics you will frequently use, you can begin creating templates for each, ensuring that you have a versatile and organized library.

Create or Source Templates

Once you have a clear sense of your brand identity and content needs, it’s time to create or source infographic templates.

Option 1: Create Templates from Scratch

If you have a design team or the expertise to do so, creating custom templates from scratch gives you the most flexibility. By doing so, you can ensure each template is aligned with your brand’s specific style guide and the needs of your content.

Here’s how you can approach template creation:

Design the Structure: Design the basic layout that you will reuse across your infographics. This could include predefined sections for headers, data points, charts, and images. A template ensures you don’t have to start from scratch every time.
Use Grids for Consistency: Grids help structure your infographics by ensuring that each element aligns consistently. This is especially important if you’re working with multiple designers or content creators who need to follow a unified visual format.
Create Placeholder Sections: Within your templates, create placeholders for text, images, and data. This will make it easy for users of the template to update it with new information without disrupting the layout.
Ensure Flexibility: Your templates should allow for adjustments based on the type of infographic being created. For example, a timeline infographic might need more space for dates, while a comparison infographic requires more columns for data points.
Design for Mobile-First: Infographics should be optimized for viewing on multiple devices. Ensure your templates are responsive and can be adapted for smaller screens, especially for social media or mobile websites.

Option 2: Use Pre-made Templates

If you don’t have the resources to create custom templates, you can purchase or use free pre-made infographic templates. There are many platforms that offer high-quality infographic templates, such as:

Canva: Offers a variety of templates that you can customize with your brand colors, fonts, and logos.
Venngage: A platform dedicated to infographics with templates across a wide range of styles and types.
Visme: Another design tool with customizable infographic templates, perfect for business and marketing purposes.
Adobe Spark: Offers templates that are easy to modify and suitable for various design purposes.

When using pre-made templates, be sure to customize them fully with your brand elements to maintain consistency across your infographic library.

Organize Your Infographic Library

An infographic library is only useful if it’s organized in a way that’s easy to access and update. Whether you’re building your library digitally or physically, organization is key to maximizing its efficiency.

Tips for Organizing Your Library:

Use Folders and Subfolders: If you’re using a digital platform like Google Drive, Dropbox, or a cloud-based tool, organize your infographics into folders based on categories, such as “Timeline Infographics,” “Statistical Infographics,” “Comparison Charts,” etc.
Label Templates Clearly: Use descriptive names for your templates so it’s easy to understand what type of infographic each template is (e.g., “Timeline_Template_v1,” “Comparison_Chart_Layout,” etc.). Include version numbers if you plan to update or evolve the templates over time.
Include Guidelines and Documentation: Include a “Read Me” document or guidelines folder where your team can access branding rules, usage instructions, and tips for creating infographics that align with your brand.
Version Control: Keep track of any changes made to a template, particularly if the infographics are being updated over time. You can use a simple versioning system (e.g., “Template_v1,” “Template_v2”) or use tools like Figma or Sketch that allow for easier version control.
Use Design Collaboration Tools: Tools like Figma, Canva, or Trello can be used to organize your library and make it easier for team members to collaborate, make edits, or access assets.

Populate the Library with Data and Content

Now that you’ve set up templates, it’s time to populate your infographic library with content.

Create Infographics for Common Content: Start by designing infographics for content you know will come up frequently. For example, if you run a blog and often reference statistics or trends, create a statistical infographic template and populate it with industry data.
Repurpose Existing Content: If you already have blog posts, case studies, or reports, consider turning them into infographics. This not only saves time but also increases the reach and impact of the content in a visual format.
Consider Multiple Formats: Design infographics in different formats (horizontal, vertical, square) to ensure that your content can be used across different platforms, from websites to social media.
Update Regularly: An infographic library is a living resource. As your brand evolves and as new content needs arise, make sure to continually add to your library and update old templates.

Maintain and Scale the Library

An infographic library isn’t a one-and-done project. To remain effective, it must be maintained and scaled as your brand and content needs evolve.

Monitor Usage: Track which templates are being used the most and which ones may be outdated or underused. This can help you identify areas for improvement and make data-driven decisions about future updates.
Solicit Feedback: Ask team members for feedback on the library’s usability and effectiveness. Are there any gaps in the types of infographics available? Are there any common requests for new templates?
Scale the Library: As your brand grows and diversifies, you may need to add more templates, designs, and types of infographics to accommodate different types of content. Scaling your library ensures that you’re prepared to handle evolving marketing and communication needs.

Conclusion

Building an infographic library for your brand is a strategic way to improve content creation efficiency, maintain brand consistency, and deliver engaging visual communication across various channels. By following the steps outlined above—defining your brand’s visual identity, creating reusable templates, organizing your library, and maintaining it for scalability—you can establish an infographic resource that evolves with your business, ensuring that your brand’s message is communicated clearly and effectively for years to come.