Principles for infographics from The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Those principles espoused by Edward Tufte in The Visual Display of Quantitative Information (first edition, 1983) that I found helpful:
Excellence in statistical graphics consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency. Graphical displays should:
- show the data
- induce the viewer to think about the substance rather than about methodology, graphic design, the technology of graphic production, or something else
- avoid distorting what the data have to say
- present many numbers in a small space
- make large data sets coherent
- encourage the eye to compare different pieces of data
- reveal the data at several levels of detail, from a broad overview to the fine structure
- serve a reasonably clear purpose: description, exploration, tabulation or decoration (p.13)