Finding Valuable Datasets To Create Effective Infographics

    Regardless of the career you pursue, data is inherent to your world and a valuable resource to utilize to make informed decisions or serve as an educational asset. The primary goal of an infographic is to simplify complex data to inform an audience through engaging visuals, such as charts and other images, and minimal text to craft a concise narrative. However, before designing the graphs and typography, first you must choose a topic that will narrow the goal and conduct research to establish a firm foundation of knowledge. Then, with the details gathered, discover and source from accurate datasets to provide the visual narratives of an infographic with reliable information to influence its design and support the conclusion of the subject. 

So, to ease digging through the vast digital sea of the internet, here are some trustworthy repositories to examine:

Google Dataset Search 

Similar to Google's search engine, the Google Dataset Search is a free-to-use search engine that is designed to locate accessible databases from across the internet and allow easy traversal to their site. For a quick tutorial, look in the reference section below.

Data.gov & Data.gov.uk

Meanwhile, Data.gov provides a selective curation of metadata on US federal and state/local government datasets and other resources.
Whereas Data.gov.uk provides similar information on government, business, health, and financial datasets in the United Kingdom (Britain, Scotland, Northern Ireland, etc.). If you want more European-based collections, I would advise utilizing the data.europe.eu; however, examine the guide in the reference section, as it can be confusing to navigate.

Other Datasets (Health & Financial)

For collections of health and human service datasets, examine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the HealthData.gov for catalogs of researchers, study cases, outbreak reports, vaccine sites, and more.

For reports on stock market changes and international trades, look into the Financial Times or UN Comtrade Database. 

This is not an exhaustive list, as there is more in the articles listed below, but the datasets mentioned are accurate and free. Additionally, many of these datasets provide a method of exporting/downloading the data as a .csv or .xsl that can be transferred to Excel or Google Sheets to create a graph/chart. Otherwise, a few sites may also offer alternatives, such as their own visualization program, like the CDC. In short, these repositories will act as a quick, accessible tool to support your future analysis and later inform the designs that will create the most effective and appealing infographics.

REFERENCES

50 Interesting Data Sets to Find Data You Need

Discovering Datasets for Research: A Quick Guide

Tutorial for Google Dataset Search 

Tutorial for Data.Europe.eu Datasets