Isotype Pictograms
Date
Credits
- Otto Neurath 2 Creator
- Gerd Arntz 2 Graphic Designer
Format
- Symbol 12
Media
- woodcut 12
Locations Made
- Austria 6
Links
The Isotype (International System of Typographic Picture Education) was developed in the 1920s and 1930s by Otto Neurath, an Austrian sociologist, with key contributions from Gerd Arntz, a German graphic designer. Their goal was to create a universal visual language that could communicate complex data and concepts to a broad audience, regardless of literacy or language.
Neurath believed that "words divide, pictures unite"—a philosophy that led to a systematic approach to pictograms that could convey statistics, trends, and societal information. Arntz, with his background in woodcut-style graphics, designed over 4,000 pictograms, simplifying economic, social, and political data into highly readable symbols. These pictograms were widely used in education, public information campaigns, and early infographics. Isotype laid the foundation for pictogram-based way finding systems, which later merged with Swiss Style’s clean typography.
