I was moving some piles of junk in a storage room and came across a 1934 U.S. Public Works Administration book on Mississippi Valley public works projects (Report of the Mississippi Valley Committee of the Public Works Administration, October 1, 1934). The book is full of maps and other information graphics influenced by Otto Neurath, Gerd Arntz, and Marie Reidemeister’s picture language, isotype.
I always thought isotype had a great look to it. Its context, in Vienna Circle logical positivism, is a bit wonky, and the idea that symbols – if designed carefully enough – could be “universally communicable” across all cultural and social differences, is merely the dream of those born with a peculiar neurology. Nevertheless, the isotype “look” is cool in a retro sort of way, and it has certainly influenced the current spare design ethos in cartography.
Some annotated examples of the isotype “language” from a 1937 article by Neurath:
The Gerd Arntz Web Archive is a spectacular collection of thousands of isotype symbols designed by Arntz. All seem to be free to use. (symbols are copyrighted by Pictoright – thanks to Jonathan Hunt for pointing this out). The site also has a breif biography of Arntz.
In casting about the internets, I was gladdened to find someone had scanned the isotype classic, Atlas of Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft (1930, 14+mb PDF). As far as I know the atlas was printed (on sheets) in limited numbers and has never been easy to find. Sybilla Nikolow discusses the atlas in her article “Society and Economy: An Atlas in Otto Neurath’s Pictorial Statistics from 1930.” (PDF)
A sampling of maps and graphs from the Atlas follows, and a few more useful isotype resources can be found way at the end.
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A few interesting isotype resources:
The Isotype Institute documents the history of isotype and has much useful information.
A snazzy discussion of isotype done up by mixing isotype and text is Modern Hieroglyphics. (PDF)
Ellen Lupton reviews the history and significance of isotype in her article “Reading Isotype.” (PDF)
Neurath and the Vienna Method of Picture Statistics (PDF). A chapter out of an e-book called Speaking of Graphics An Essay on Graphicacy in Science, Technology and Business by Paul J. Lewi. Seems like a nice overview of the history of isotype and its characteristics.
The DADA Companion has much information on design and art related to isotype. Search for “isotype” or “Neurath.”
A new book to be published in April of 2009 is called The Transformer: Principles of Making Isotype Charts by Marie Neurath and Robin Kinross.
Austin Kleon’s blog on graphic design has a nice posting on isotype, comics, and information graphics design. Search the blog for other isotype references.
The web magazine Mute has a feature called The Dutch Are Weeping in Four Universal Pictorial Languages At Least that reviews a series of contemporary exhibits that focus on isotype and related ideas. One exhibit called After Neurath has a significant amount of information and links.
The New York Times summarized 2007 US and Coalition member deaths in Iraq in a isotype-esque chart (click for larger version):
Stroom De Haag writes (in the online magazine Archined) about Neurath as the “grandfather of open source.”
[…] With Isotype. John Krygier has a fascinating post about maps that borrow stylistically from Isotype: I always thought isotype had a great look to it. […]
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Wow these are gorgeous pieces of graphic design.
Your citation of Gerd Arntz Web Archive (http://gerdarntz.org/isotype/ ) suggests the images are free to use. In fact, they are copyrighted by Pictoright and commercial use is prohibited: http://gerdarntz.org/content/copyright
Thanks for a great article.
@JBKrygier:
“the idea that symbols – if designed carefully enough – could be ‘universally communicable’ across all cultural and social differences, is merely the dream of those born with a peculiar neurology”
Amen to this hilarious observation. I’m reminded of the greenmap project, an admirable endeavor that nonetheless boasts of a universal set of icons. Pure folly.
http://www.greenmap.org/greenhouse/en/about/iconintro
Did you ever see that movie “City of Ember” the symbols remind me of that.
“Peculiar neurology”? I’m sorry, I think you mean “cultural context” – specifically modernism.
A note on the copyright, if these icons were first published in 1930 by the museum in Vienna they are probably in the public domain. Also the fact that some of these might have been published in the soviet union, and the USA (and if not re-registered there after the first term extension) might mean they are also out of copyright there.
The fact that these symbols are from the 1930s means that they are on the edge of the public domain and quite possibly in the public domain in some areas.
Copyright is so fuzzy, with countries having made so many extensions to term in the last 20 years some applied retroactively and some not.
I started this comment thinking some of these symbols WERE in the public domain… then after research… well some of them still might be but you would need to dig a lot more to tell.
[…] explicación vén a conto de que hai uns días din cun magnífico post en Making Maps, Mapping with Isotype, no que se recollen varios exemplos desta linguaxe cartográfica, dos que destaca un clásico entre […]
[…] Very relevant to the project we just finished: Mapping with Isotype […]
[…] Mapping with Isotype « Making Maps: DIY Cartography […]
[…] to John Krygier at Making Maps: DIY Cartography for posting on this. This entry was written by Jeff Kinkle, posted on August 19, 2009 at 7:23 am, […]
[…] found a blog with a bunch of examples – a wealth of information & graphic design eye candy! Check it out here Posted in Infographics […]
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[…] La influencia de los isotipos en la simbología de los mapas ha sido decisiva. […]