Fact sheets are a great way to get a target audience motivated and spread awareness. However, it's not just the information that interests readers; the overall design is what will help to keep them reading. You've seen impressive fact sheets in the past; how did the designers do it? These are seven tips and pointers you can use for your own fact sheet design.
1. Employ Standard Graphic Design Principles
If you aren't already familiar with graphic design standards, it's a good idea to study up. Understanding the various principles of graphic design will help you to handle balance, hierarchy, typeface harmony, and other aspects of your fact sheet design. Nothing will turn a reader away faster than a fact sheet that's hard to understand or read.
2. Study Color Theory
Unless you're designing a fact sheet for your company, which is likely already branded, you'll need to know how to use color for your fact sheet. Various colors possess different meanings, and they can convey powerful messages for your fact sheet. Using the wrong colors can send confusing signals, and it could render your design to be less aesthetically pleasing. Not only should you be choosing the right colors for your fact sheet design's purpose, but also colors that work well together and don't clash.
3. Use Images Rather than Text
Whenever possible, you should use images to engage your reader rather than text. For example, if you want to pose a statistic that outlines percentages of males versus females, you should steer clear of writing something along the lines of, "73% males and 27% females responded with..." This is boring and it defeats the purpose of the fact sheet in the first place. Instead, you might want to use a pie chart illustration colored with pink and blue to represent these figures.
4. Emphasize Percentages
When you are designing an element in your fact sheet design that outlines a certain percentage, you should always emphasize the number. As a rule of thumb, it's a good idea to make it slightly or significantly larger in size than surrounding text. This draws attention to the figure, and makes it more interesting than it would be if it weren't emphasized.
5. Design Flowing Figures
Pick up any number of wisely designed fact sheets, and you'll notice that they all have one thing in common. They flow easily. This means that it's easy to start from the beginning of the fact sheet and work your way down through the various elements and figures effortlessly. When designing, make sure your figures read and flow from left to right. This makes it incredibly easy for the eye to naturally move from one item to another.
6. Begin the Chart with a Surprising Statistic
Your first item of information in your fact sheet design should always be a surprising and engaging piece of information. For this, you should use a surprising statistic or fact to engage the reader. Of course, your entire fact sheet should be interesting on some level, but the introduction is what counts the most.
7. Less is More
Lastly, always keep in mind when creating your fact sheet design that less is more. Your fact sheet is not a word processing document. It is a creative way to express facts and statistics by using design principles, images, and shapes. When conveying an idea or figure, always be as direct and concise as possible.
By using these tips and viewing other successful fact sheets for inspiration, you'll be designing your own in no time!
