For weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to put my notes from the “Creating Effective Online Infographics” workshop here on Ricochet.

I started looking at examples from some of my favorite information graphics and visualization blogs, including FlowingData, Cool Infographics and Infographics News.

The more I looked, the more I realized there was no way I could match the clarity and humor on these sites. The examples and posts are written by those who’ve spent years doing this stuff almost all the time, every day. Me, I’ve had little more than a life-long fascination and two and half days in a crash course.

Still, this stuff is important. Why? Because we’re spending more time with information in all its various forms and we’re going to need more people who can make sense of it.

“Infographics is not art, it is a conveyance of information,” instructor Alberto Cairo said on the first day of class.

In the spirit of what he tried to teach us, this next series of blog posts will hopefully make order out of chaos.

First, let’s start with a little comedy, as an example of what infographics is not. This is “Tidying Up Art” from cabaret artist Ursus Wehrli.