Awesome Infographics

Give the gift that keeps on brewing this holiday season with the Periodic Table of Beer Styles; each “element” includes ABV (alcohol by volume), IBU (bitterness), and SRM (color).

David McCandless’ Visual Miscellaneum book moves beyond staid pie charts and bar graphs: it features colorful infographics that show everything from media scare stories to “in” colors.

Pedro M. Cruz’ Decline of Empires reduces the top maritime empires of the 19th and 20th centuries (France, Portugal, Spain, and England) to blobs–albeit surprisingly descriptive ones.

xkcd untangles convoluted Hollywood plotlines into organized Movie Narrative Charts; LotR, Jurassic Park, and Star Wars all become semi-coherent, but Primer still remains indecipherable.

It’s not quite as comprehensive as the Sci-Fi/Fantasy Generator, but 42 Essential Plot Twists scores points for its twisted creativity–helpfully illustrated with equally twisted drawings.

Filled with sci-fi size charts, gladiator comparisons, and tie-tying flow charts, Visual Aid’s posters are heaven for infographic lovers; they’re from the two books of the same name.

The Helmet Project deserves its own Hall of Fame for its scope: a work in progress, its goal is to catalog images of all college and pro-football helmets from 1960 to present day.

What are you chances of being struck by lighting, or, say, two nuclear blasts? Book of Odds is a site devoted to charting your personal odds for both the morbid and the marvelous.

Obliterate that writer’s block with a Martian raygun (or wizard’s blast): David Malki’s Genre-Fiction Generator is a Mad Libs-style flow chart for science fiction and fantasy writers.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you’d be better off taking the bus or hoofing it, Walk or Bus? is a handy chart broken down by distance and minutes until next ride. Thanks, John!

Try as we might, it was impossible to pry ourselves away from the work of Toby Leigh; the freelance artist is known for his often irreverent (and occasionally NSFW) infographics.