In this weeks reading- we studied ‘Isotype representing social facts pictorially’ by Christopher Burke. So far, this has been the most interesting reading for me. I find it most interesting to investigate information design, and how messages can still be conveyed through the simplicity of pictures and symbols.

The International System Of Typographic Picture Education was developed by the Viennese social scientist and philosopher Otto Neurath (1882-1945) as a method for visual statistics. He strived to represent information pictorially and to make statistics more interesting and visually understandable. The ‘teaching museum’ aimed to explain things to people and inform them on certain situations in the world that they may not be aware of or may have difficulty understanding. For example, taxes were shown through charts and diagrams to create a clearer understanding for the audience. 

I find it quite amazing how children learn the meanings of pictures before they form language. This further leads to how images are beneficial for people who aren’t educated. Isotype can be seen as an alternative to verbal language- “words divide, pictures unite” (Neurath). It was investigated in Isotype that the repetition of a picture or symbol conveyed a message better then simply enlarging the symbol. Some diagrams enlarged pictures to show a greater quantity or an increase, although this became hard to read. This lead to an amount only being shown by the repetition of one symbol.

In this weeks lecture, we were shown a video called ‘The Falling of World War II’. There was so much important information in this film which kept me very intrigued. It displayed the amount of deaths that occurred in each country along with the dates they took place. The video really supported to the fact that symbol repetition is extremely effective when trying to convey information to an audience. Below are some more examples of Isotypes that I believe do a very good job of visually representing important information.