There is a fair amount of variety in the types of infographics which each type being useful in its own capacity. Each type is useful in certain situations. There is more types than these examples but they are a good starting point. If you would like to find out about more styles of infographics please go to the link below.
Visualized articles are where a piece of text or research is taken and described visually by the inforgraphic. It usually has more text as the infographic is trying to state the full story of the text in question from beginning to end rather than just showing information about the subject.
This is best used when you have a huge amount of text such as an essay that you need to turn into a visual such as a presentation as a part of an assignment or for academic posters.
An example of this can be seen below:
If you have a subject that has a history, i.e a beginning and end a timeline can be quite useful to convey the journey that the subject has taken. It is very useful if you need to showcase the history and flow of time.
It is useful when you need to showcase the passing of time and how one process goes into another.
Number explosion is where the infographic is made up of huge amount of numbers and statistics. It is where the statistics are showcased through various text choices and images but the stats are the main thing of interest.
It is best to use when you have a huge amount of statistics that you need to visualize in some way an example is below:
How to infographics can be used to succinctly go through a complicated process and explain it to your audience in a simple way.
Versus infographics are used to compare two different things such as businesses or concepts and showcase what is similar and what is different about them, they can also be used to showcase why one thing is inferior to the other. However the comparison must be interesting or relevant enough to appeal to the audience.
An example can be seen below:
