Otto Neurath (1882–1945), Marie Neurath (born Marie Reidemeister) and Gerd Arntz (1900–1988) established a highly influential movement in graphic design for quantitative data known as the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics, later renamed Isotype, to democratize technical and scientific knowledge and increase access to information for lay audiences and the public using easy-to-interpret, picture-based graphics.
Gesellschaft und Wirtschaf: Bildstatistisches Elementarwerk. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1930.
This isotype shows infant mortality represented by orange baby icons arranged in five rows of two. Black coffins cover the average number out of ten who die. On the right side, each country’s wealth is plotted by coins representing income per person. The clustering of individuals into groups of five or ten makes it easy to see the relationship between infant mortality and per-capita wealth.
Gesellschaft und Wirtschaf: Bildstatistisches Elementarwerk. Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1930.
This isotype shows emigration and immigration statistics for several countries in the aftermath of World War I, with each ‘traveling person’ icon representing two hundred thousand people. The design element that allows for meaningful comparisons is the choice of a central axis so each country’s relative gain or loss of people can be easily determined.
Louis M. Hacker (1899–1987), Rudolf Modley (1906–1976), and George R. Taylor (1895–1983).The United States: A Graphic History. New York: Modern Age Books, 1937.
Rudolf Modley (1906–1976), a student of Otto Neurath’s, brought Isotype charts to the United States and founded a company specializing in them. His syndicated service for newspapers produced hundreds of Isotype charts and introduced many Americans to this kind of visualization. This chart shows per capita national debt in the United States before and after the Civil War, the First World War, and the Depression. Each red coin represents fifteen dollars. The coins are clustered into groups of five to aid with calculation. The chart does not consider the effects of inflation, which makes comparing the values in the 1870s to those in the 1930s problematic.
