So a friend asked for help learning how to make infographics the other day, and in the process of sticking together some links for her, I remembered why I fell in love with making graphics in the first place. Now, at the end of the week where this and this happened, plus a gazillion other things that make me more than a little depressed about the news industry, I feel like sharing. 
<commence geek out!>
Deciding between design and graphics was the best career decision I ever made (thus far in my, uh, short and not-very-illustrious career). The jobs are in demand, and graphics combine reporting and visual presentation in really fun ways. Also, graphics transition to the web more easily than print design. However, graphics are very conceptual- unlike HTML or Flash, you can’t become a great graphics-maker by learning some code. You have to learn a bit of Illustrator, Excel or one of (literally) a gazillion other data visualization tools, yes, but it’s important to learn to show info simply, accurately and clearly. (Side note: I’ve been lucky enough to have some INCREDIBLE infographics teachers and editors. And to go to a university with really good Computer Assisted Reporting classes.) The best infographics show change- how much gas prices went up this year vs. last year, where the new road will go, the difference between x and y, etc.
Anyhow, here are some of my favorite infographic links:
George Rorick is the father of infographics. He invented the color weather map! He was a teacher at a Poynter seminar I attended last fall. George championed the concept of infographic artists as reporters. George says to never, ever, ever draw what isn’t there or draw something if you don’t know exactly what it looks like. (On that note, a fun part of my current job is going out in the field with a tape measure figuring out exactly how big something is. And convincing reporters why they should let me tag along 
. The integrity and accuracy of graphics is super important because most papers still have to fight the good fight to get them in the paper. Except the NYT, where their incredible infographics department has clout.
Poynter’s lovely farewell to George
One graphics great interviews another
John Grimwade (w/ Conde Nast) is also amazing (he refers to himself as “really old British graphics guy” hehe): His site
Nigel Holmes is the best at simple visual explanations: Nigel Holmes (watch the vampire energy video)
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel has a really cool infographics blog where their artists post their work and talk about how they made it:
News Illustrated
For fun: Cool Infographics
The News Artists Organization is kinda similar to Visual Editors, but their forums are a little Web 1.0 clunky and hard to use, imo. I usually just read and don’t post.
And some more links, including data sources @my Delicious: http://delicious.com/darlacameron/infographics.
One of the reasons I was reeeeally happy to get a job in Florida is we have amazing open records laws, especially for geographic data. If you are ever looking for some numbers, I recommend just calling the agency you need the data from and making nice.
And a general charting note- because I made this mistake many times- fever (or line) charts should only be used to show change over time. For example, stocks- the price changes each day (and lately it mostly goes down). Bar charts can be used to show individual, discrete values, like a state’s budget each year or the high temperature each day, etc.
