Art

Isotype International Picture Language

Suki Beg | Friday 21 January, 2011 14:51

Image Courtesy of the artist, Reading University and The V&A

Throughout his life Otto Neurath collected maps, city plans, battle scenes and educational toys which he considered the precursor to Isotype, the International Standard of Typographic Pictorial Education. Along with Marie Neurath, Otto developed this system to make statistics accessible and educational.

The movement initially took off in Russia during the 30s, where the diagrammatic style of Isotype lent itself perfectly to the Izostat Institute, whose primary task was to communicate the claimed socio-economic achievements of the Soviet Union to a mass audience. Perhaps it’s just as well that their relations with the Soviet Authorities broke down and Isotype wasn’t confined to such conclusive simplicity.

Instead, Marie and Otto continued educating the masses with their appealing and understandable visualisations. ‘Around Rembrandt’ was an innovative Dutch department store-based display, which examined the social and historical background of Rembrandt’s work. The display highlights how little is done to help the public understand the work of famous painters and it would be fascinating to see this style applied more widely.

The Neuraths went on to create visualisations for health education, and the
NHS. Their series of books for children is particularly mesmerising and remarkably well researched: demonstrating the importance of synthesizing information into small chunks and linking visuals to ideas. In this age of billion pound deficits, million pound bonuses, intangible viruses and information overload let’s give a thumbs up to useable stats. Until 13 March.

Victoria and Albert Museum, Studio Gallery room 17a and 18a

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