Creating a Brief for a Medical-Scientific Infographic: A Guide
Medical scientific infographics contain a wealth of detailed, science-packed information, and can become quite complex.
Whether you're a one-person scientific team or a large brand with distributed teams worldwide, the creative brief is the cornerstone of every scientific infographic project you start. Indeed, it is the cornerstone of all creative projects.
A creative brief is a document that:
➽ Sets the vision
➽ Clarifies objectives
➽ Provides the necessary direction
➽ Holds all parties accountable to the main goal
It’s what you and the design team can refer back to during the project development process. It ensures that everyone involved is on the same page.
What a creative brief is not:
It's not a document that once created is forgotten. The creative brief is a document that may change as requirements are added. It's a way to document the process of refining goals within the project scope.
If you are planning to craft a scientific infographic, and need a creative brief that can streamline your creation process, you can follow the steps listed below, they’ll guide you in creating one without the fear to have left out anything.
Set Up a Live Document: This will serve as a central repository for all the information you collect. This live document will be your go-to reference throughout the infographic creation. We love to use Notion, but google docs is equally efficient
Title Your Infographic: Your title should reflect the content and include a header and a sub-header.
State the Main Goal: What's the purpose of your infographic? Is it to raise awareness, educate, inform, sell, or promote something? Defining this will guide the direction of your infographic project.
List Your Target Audience: Your audience should be in line with your main goal. Understanding who they are will shape the way you will present the content and visuals and it is an important item.
List the Main Takeaways: What are the key scientific messages you want your audience to remember? List them down, as well, trying to maintain clarity.
Determine the Infographic's Home: Where will your infographic be displayed? Will it be a downloadable PDF or a carousel on a webpage? This step will not help you directly, but will definitely provide that extra information to the design team to be able to plan your scientific infographic ahead.
Store Relevant Links: Keep all links to research and notes in your live document, so that you provide easy access to all related and relevant information, stored in the same location .
Include Branding Guidelines or Style Preferences: This is quite important, to make sure the infographic aligns with your brand identity.
Add Image Suggestions: This should be a little inspiration dump. The visuals collected at this stage provide a cue to what’s been done for that specific subject, they can also guide the design process.
Compile and Reduce Text: Keep your content tight and make sure its engages the public by reducing the amount of repetition and difficult jargon. Remember, less is often more in infographics.
Review Your Main Goal Against Your Title: Make sure your title accurately reflects your content and message. Make necessary adjustments if needed.
If you follow these steps as suggested above, you’ll end up creating an effective scientific infographic brief. This thorough process can minimize the number of correction rounds and make the infographic creation process smoother and more streamlined.
Every successful infographic project starts with a concise, targeted, and useful brief. So, get ready to create your scientific infographic brief and kickstart your infographic project today! The creation of a scientific infographic brief doesn't have to be complex, but needs to start from a well organised document. Make the process simpler and more efficient with this guide!
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This article is part of a series about the tools of the trade in biomedical visual communication for professionals in the life sciences. This series will help you when starting visualization projects and aims to bridge the communication gap between life sciences professionals and agencies by examining aspects of the creative workflow and processes.
