Infographics are a visual way of presenting varying amounts of information. As we can see the word consists of two parts "info" - information, "graphics" - images, graphics.
One of the first to use infographics in their activities was the USA Today newspaper. Their project was launched in 1982. In just a couple of years, USA Today entered the top five most read newspapers in the United States. The Americans really liked the section with vivid images and comments. Thus, information reached the reader more efficiently and faster.
Nowadays, infographics are used in many fields of activity: from science to journalism. The main advantages and fundamental success of infographics are: clear and colorful presentation of information, emotional appeal to the reader, associative presentation.
Few people know, but the presentation of information in pictures came to us from ancient times. Pictures of animals or anything else that ancient man portrayed do not carry a semantic load, but if the image shows to go there, find a weapon, kill a mammoth, then it already represents information, and, therefore, is close to infographics. In ancient Egypt, people depicted their history in the form of images on the walls of the temple or pyramids.
Infographics are great for providing just about any kind of information. Since 2011, the magazine "Infographics" has been published in Russia, in which all news is presented with the help of graphics and a small amount of text. Of course, it's hard to imagine a whole book written entirely with the help of infographics, because the book is read individually, everyone has their own idea of the plot and characters in their heads, in general, their own picture in their heads. So we can say that infographics limit the imagination of the reader, but this is all pretty relative. There is certain information that is easier and more effective to convey to the reader in infographics, but you cannot convey any information. Of course, these directions are very effective, but everything must pass the test of time.