Creating charts that people talk about is an excellent way to focus attention on your data. A well-designed, interesting chart can make it more likely that you will get motivated to do something with the information it contains.

Chart trends are very popular these days. People love making comparisons using charts to show how much of a product or service has increased in price over time. It seems like everyone has a smartphone now, so creating a timeline view of mobile phone technology is a good example of this.

Businesses use trending charts all the time to compare their own performance against that of their competitors. This gives them motivation to keep up with changing market conditions.

In this article, you’ll learn some easy ways to create your own trendy charts in Microsoft Office Excel. They’re novices should be able as hard as possible!

You’ll start by choosing a template then editing it to remove any unnecessary features. After that, you’ll learn how to add axis, type in values, and design the chart. Once everything is complete, you’ll save your work and publish it so anyone can see it.

If you want to take things one step further, you could even share it online! If there's anything else you need help with, feel free to search the internet for similar examples or ask us here on Digital Skills Academy. We're always happy to help.

Make a chart

A trending line chart is one that uses time as the axis. This gives you an interesting way to visualize trends over time. You can use this with either discrete data (dots and dashes) or continuous data (waves).

Discrete data examples include: dates, events, milestones, etc. With these types of charts, you’ll want to make sure your markers are distinguishing and clear.

For instance, if there were March 17th at 9 o�clock every morning, then what would happen at 10 o’clock? More people going onto social media sites!

That wouldn’t make for an interesting trend, so be careful about how you design your charts.

With more interactive charts like polar coordinates, color schemes that shift, bubbles that rise and fall, and other fun designs, you can add some flavor to your trends.

Trendline charts work similarly to line graphs, but they go up and down instead of just left-to-right. That being said, both do a great job creating interest.

There are several ways to create a trending line chart in Microsoft Excel. Two of my favorites are using two different styles and adding pattern fills to help emphasize the lines.

Add the chart to the sheet

Now that you have your source data, time frame, and axis line selected, it’s time to create your chart. Click “Insert” next to the charts tab to bring up the toolbox. Then, choose "Chart - Line".

Once the box has loaded, search for “Trendline” and hit enter to add the element to your document. When the menu drops down, pick your location (make sure this is saved here before moving onto the next step) and then select either "Data Range as Axis" or "Single Value As Axis."

We will go with Data Range as Axis because we want our y-axis to be dependent upon another column in our spreadsheet. Once both are checked, click continue. A new window will ask if you would like to rename the graph. Simply type away!

After doing so, you will now need to edit the title of the graph. Find the text marked 'Title' and replace it with '[Graph]'. Do not remove the [] or the graph will not show up!

Lastly, under advanced settings, uncheck 'Show grid lines', 'Highlight color', and 'Axis labels'. These three features are pretty self explanatory!

Your diagram should look something similar to the one below:

You can now save and publish this file to make an informative presentation or memo.

Make the chart show the data in a trending manner

A trending chart is one that grows longer as it goes up, like an exponential curve. An example of this would be the yearly average price of a car. As you go up towards a new model year, cars keep getting higher and higher due to rising inflation.

This type of trend line can also be drawn using data sets that increase slowly at first and then speed up slightly before dropping off, but not totally. This creates a very interesting effect where the graph gets taller and taller until it reaches its limit.

For instance, if we were to plot the number of people who graduated high school over time, there would be a slow climb during the years when classes had less than twenty students, and then a quick rise after schools have more than twenty students for several years.

After a few years, however, the numbers start to drop off because fewer and fewer kids are graduating each year.

Create the chart animation

The next step is creating an interesting way to add movement to your bar charts. You can do this by adding what’s called an animating value or axis. This is done with a process that moves the bar up, stays still for a set amount of time, and then drops back down.

The easiest way to create this effect is using a pivot table. A pivot table is like a window into another column or field. In our case, we will use it as an axis.

We can enter all of our data into a pivot table and then drag the “Value” field onto “Time (minutes)”. Now, every minute, the bars move up, stay for one second, and then drop down.

You can now play around with these settings to see different effects such as moving faster or slower than one second, changing the length of the hold time, and so forth.

Edit the chart

After you create your initial trending chart, you can start adding features to it to make it more interesting. The first thing that many people do is add another axis to the chart.

You can add an additional time axis by selecting Time from the Format drop-down box under Axis for the secondary horizontal axis. You will then need to choose More Options so that you can select whether to have date numbers or just times next to each other.

After this has been done, you can then pick one of the interactive feature types such as trendlines or area charts to create some fun trends.

Personalize the chart

It is very important to personalize your charts. What kind of information you include in the chart, what colors are used, and whether it is interactive or not all depend on the use of the chart.

For example, if this was for an article about how to make sure your house gets sold, then you do not need to show the listing price next to the property picture. These things distract from the main point of the article!

If this were for selling a product, then you would want to include that information here. The same goes for if it was for promoting yourself as an expert or giving advice on the products/services.

Interactive charts allow the user to change the data displayed in the chart. For example, you can add or remove items such as prices, numbers, etc.

Use the chart for marketing purposes

Charts are very popular these days. They do not need to be used for business, however. In fact, you can use them for almost anything!

Charts have many uses that go beyond showing how much money your company makes or how well people liked last week’s new product.

You can create trending charts to show off some of the most powerful features of this tool.

By creating trends charts, you will emphasize the importance of what your organization does and how successful it is.

Trending charts also allow you to compare one thing to another. For example, you could compare the profits of two different companies over several months.

That way you can determine which ones are more efficient and maybe even find ways to improve their performance.

Using trends charts effectively

When using a trend chart properly, it can really boost your creativity. You may want to look into other types of charts, as well. Some things to consider are parallel lines, area graphs, and pie charts.

Whatever type of chart you choose, make sure your statistics match up with what you are trying to represent. Make sure your numbers make sense and are reliable.

Remember, if there is an error in your source data, then the chart will not correctly interpret the information given to it. Check out our article about sources of statistical info to ensure yours are correct.

Reference your chart history

Now that you have determined what colors look good together, it is time to pick some colors for your charts! There are many ways to do this, but one of the most effective methods is by looking at past trending color schemes and creating shades of those colors within your charts.

You can take inspiration from all-time favorite color combinations such as red with green or orange with purple, and then mix them together to make new shades. Or you could go the opposite route and choose very neutral colors like gray or black and white patterns, and add texture to match the data set.

Whatever method you decide on, just be sure to remain consistent! If there’s a popular palette that features bold colors, using similar ones will help give your charts the same appeal.