montserrat college of art
studio.montserrat
design stories
 

hommages et refractions
visual essays on design history and practice
 

Pictorial sign

1. Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) was introduced in 1936 by Otto Neurath.

2. Isotype is a set of pictographic characters used "to create narrative visual material, avoiding details which do not improve the narrative character." Neurath, International Picture Language (1936)

3. Isotype was designed to be an alternative to written script ("adapted to the child's mind"), as a pictorial means for communicating information about
a. directions, events, and objects, and
b. complex relationships in space and time.

Original pictograms are here collaged in a promotional design.

Chung-heng Liu, Luke Shover