The Austrian-born Otto Neurath, a strong democratic socialist philosopher, sociologist, and political economist, did not produce the data or render the icons. Instead, “he helped to process and make visual other people's data (i.e. statistics or other kinds of information),” as Kinross put it in an email. “He would publish anywhere, and usually said ‘yes’ to any commissions, from the tabloid newspaper to the academic journal.”

Neurath belongs to the era of practical utopianism of the Modern Movement in Europe, from early to middle 20th century. But “his work wasn't a simple matter of ideology or propaganda,” Kinross said. “His interest was always in education and human development. He didn't get involved in the questions of ‘how to get to the departure lounge.’ His work with the National Tuberculosis Association was typical of this approach.”

Regarding the graphic icons, Kinross added, “one crucial aspect of their design is that, for Neurath, they had to work visually when seen in rows, when put next to each other as multiples. This condition doesn't apply to information icons. The design problem there is a different one.”

With the Nazi march into Austria, Neurath fled Vienna for Holland. He met his future wife Marie Reidemeister there and after the German bombing of Rotterdam the pair escaped to England, where they were interned on the Isle of Man. Following their release they established the Isotype Institute in Oxford. From this base they continued to develop their unique strategy, which influenced designers worldwide.

“Perhaps the main contribution of the new book is to expand on the previously rather limited conception of Isotype as being about rows of pictograms in charts made in Vienna,” Kinross said. “The book shows how much non-statistical work there was, and how far it traveled—U.S.A., USSR, West Africa, and elsewhere.”

An editor's note in the book emphasizes that Isotypes are not pictographs, nor were Otto Neurath and Gert Arntz the sole creators: “Several essays highlight the work of the transformer in Isotype. The Isotype transformer was the real designer of the work. The main Isotype transformer was Marie Neurath.”

In recent years, some critics have disparaged Isotype as overly simplistic. But that’s because, Kinross said, they aren’t seeing the full picture. Single graphical symbols as navigation signs should not be the lasting Isotype legacy. “The famous recent enemy of Isotype has been [the information design expert] Edward Tufte,” noted Kinross. “His insinuation has been that it lacks data-richness. But then his one published criticism of Isotype uses a poor imitation of Isotype as his object of attack.” With this new book, Kinross and company have answered that critique by spotlighting Isotype’s incredible versatility and depth.

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