The ISOTYPE

Communicating data visually is not only about perception and precision, but also understanding. ISOTYPE was developed to bridge the gap between showing data in a way that’s easy to read and at the same time easier to understand than unadorned bar charts.

The International System of Typographic Picture Education (which is what ISOTYPE stands for) was developed in the 1920s by Otto Neurath, his wife Marie Neurath, and Gerd Arntz. It came out of the philosophy of the Vienna Circle (think Freud, Wittgenstein, Schrödinger, etc.), with the goal of changing the world by educating people about the world around them (see The Changing Goals of Data Visualization).

ISOTYPE is really a larger system, which includes two ideas that nicely complement each other: a visual language for creating icons, and the idea of using multiples to represent quantitative data.

The visual language is the better-known one. If you have seen traffic signs, public restroom signs, or any kind sign really, in the last 80 years or so, you have seen either ISOTYPE designs or designs strongly influenced by ISOTYPE. The icon language is based on ideas like the extreme restriction of angles and shapes used, only using two colors, symmetry, etc.

What is less known is that these icons were not only used for signage, but also to construct visualizations of data that were meant to educate people about the world. The icons make these images easier to read and remember, [...]