Icaro Doria, a 25-year old Brazilian reporter for Lisbon-based Grande Reportagem magazine, has produced a beautiful set of eight images, part of a series called "Meet the World".

The images distort national flags to turn them into graphs of statistics about social and political issues. Brazil's flag becomes a map of daily income, the faint white stars representing Brazil's economic elite. The green and red bars in Burkina Faso's flag dominate the yellow star in the center - the bars represent children who die before their first or third birthdays, while the star represents children who survive to maturity.

Hit the extended entry for a couple of good examples.

Thanks to Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla for the link.