Understanding the fundamentals of color and typography, and combining them with your understanding of design principles will help you to create more effective designs and infographics.

Let’s start with color. Color can be described as having two attributes: hue and intensity.

Hue is a technical term that we typically think of as color.
In a cultural context, hues carry meaning. There is plenty information about the psychology of colors and the meaning of colors in cultures. These resources describe various meanings ascribed to hues by various cultures. For example, red can mean many things:
In the U.S., red can mean heat, love, passion, radicalism, and anger, among other things.
In South America, red can mean danger and success.
In Japan, red can mean passion, repelling of evil, and strength.
In Africa, red can mean good luck and anger.

When you use colors, you should be aware of the cultural context and the meanings various hues might carry.

Color intensity refers to saturation and lightness; basically, it refers to how rich and bright a hue appears to be.

Color intensity can be used to make a graphic appear brighter or darker, to generate different moods, and to create a variety of contrasts.

You can combine your understanding of color hue and intensity with the four basic design principles, especially contrast and repetition.
To create contrast with colors, use different hues and intensities. In this image, the red and orange socks stand out against a background of black and gray hues. Contrasting colors can draw attention to specific elements of your design.

You can also create repetition, by using the same hues and intensities. In this image of people in the same color scrubs, no one figure stands out. Repetition of hue and intensity can create uniformity and gather like things into a visually obvious group.

In addition to color, you should pay attention to typography in your design. Typography refers to the design elements of your type, including typeface, letter size, kerning, leading, and others.

We will focus on typeface, which you may know as a font family. When you're designing your infographic, be sure to also consider other typographic features, such as the size of the letters and closely they are spaced.

There are a number of kinds of typefaces. The most familiar to you are probably serif and sans serif. Serif fonts have additional "strokes" at the ends of their lines. Sans serif fonts don't have these extra strokes.
Other typefaces include blackletter, calligraphic and scripts, which are all based on handwriting with various writing implements. You are probably also familiar with some novelty typefaces, such as Comic Sans, Desdemona, and Papyrus.

Typefaces carry certain emotional resonances. We have learned to associate certain kinds of typefaces with varying purposes and ethos. For example, which lawyer would you rather have represent you in court? Probably the second one. The font makes her seem more serious and reliable.

Just like with color, your understanding of typography can be combined with your knowledge of basic design principles. You can vary typographic elements, including typeface, size, color, spacing and so on, in order to create contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity. In turn, these combined design choices create a particular aesthetic for your graphic.

Warning. If you mix too many fonts, you risk disorienting your readers, so they don't know what to pay attention to. A jumble of fonts can make all your text seem confusing and undo other good design choices you've made.

Color and type are both important design elements for you to consider when creating graphics that incorporate visual design. Be sure to make considered and rhetorically sound decisions about both color and type.