It all started when I was on an evening flight from New York City to Atlanta. The evening flight service had dimmed the lights, the flight was a bit crowded, and most people were asleep or watching their small screens. I was restless, had downloaded some Isotype images from Chris Mullen’s amazing Fulltable website, and for some reason stopped to really explore the isotype chart “Planning for Cotton” from ‘Two Commonwealths’ in 1945. Without any previous understanding of Soviet governmental structure, economic planning, or industrial supply chain, I was able to understand a phenomenally massive economic structure just by reading the chart. It was a transformational experience and I was hooked.
Since then I have written many articles about Isotype, and at this time, am about half-way through writing a book tentatively called “The Rules of Isotype”. As my curiosity has increased, I have taken various intensive steps towards immersing myself in the existing research as well as the actual designs of Isotype across the roughly 6 or 7 decades that its main practitioners lived and worked.
Below are links to the articles in 1 place, but I also have a growing (and substantial) archive of digitized Isotype books in full, as well as research materials of the work by Otto and Marie Neurath, Gerd Arntz, Rudolf Modley, Peter Alma, Augustin Tschinkel, and many others. I guess I’ll have to add a way of accessing that soon too.
If you have any interest or questions or just want to say hello - by all means drop me a line! I’m super excited to discuss this stuff.
Recognizing the co-creator of the Isotype as a data visualization pioneer
A deep-dive into the design of Planning For Cotton, 1945
LESSONS OF ISOTYPE — PART 1: Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain”
LESSONS OF ISOTYPE — PART 2: Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain”
LESSONS OF ISOTYPE — PART 3: Discussing the charts in the Book Series “America & Britain”
Documenting the little-known Isotypes created by the IZOSTAT — a Soviet ‘spin-off’ by Otto Neurath in 1932
The story of Discovering and archiving hundreds of Telefact charts by Rudolf Modley
Collected from Syndicated US Newspapers from 1938-1945
I’m delighted to have my ongoing Isotype research and pending first book covered by the great Steven Heller! Go check it out!
The period between the world wars showed a similar complex reality in the US, eventually resulting in massive infrastructural changes created during the New Deal.
Revisiting a 1946 pamphlet (and the role of pamphlets in educating adults) that helps explain the Jan. 6th insurrection
Our first chaotic data art performance based on isotype principles and a whole lot of community fun!