Fancy flowcharts! Colorful maps! A running cheetah made see-through! In this age of information overload, infographics have evolved into a vital new vernacular, transforming the Internet’s daily avalanche of facts and figures into digestible and often beautiful images.





Edited by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Gareth Cook and with an introduction by polymath musician-writer-data visualization fanatic David Byrne, The Best American Infographics 2013 offers 165 pages of graphic answers to questions you never thought to ask, from “How fast is Usain Bolt?” to “Who reads erotica?” to “How do you move a coffee cup with your mind?” Click on the slide show above to see our selections for the best of The Best–eight of the year’s most creative data visualizations.