Over the winter, I had the misfortune of getting sick not once, but twice! After not coming down with anything for the last three years, it was a bit of a shock. Laying on the couch in my misery I started thinking about why we have to go through that cycle of symptoms (sore throat - runny nose - cough etc...) every time we catch a virus. 

Turns out, there's not a lot of info available out there! Most webpages dedicated to illnesses only talk about how to treat symptoms, not what causes them; but I was able to pull together enough information to somewhat satisfy my curiosity and put it together in an infographic:

In summary, all the symptoms caused by colds are a result of your body's defense system overreacting to a small amount of virus. Thanks a lot body... :(

Of course, I also couldn't make that infographic without doing an animation to accompany it. I exported my layout with the video into a PDF, but that's not compatible with Behance. So the full animation is below; very simple, but (I think) effective!