“This talk takes as its starting point the work of Otto Neurath in graphic communication - the wiener methode der bildstatistik and isotype - which was developed first in the 1920s. Neurath claimed that this work was governed by a method and perhaps a system. Did the ‘method’ live and die with its principal creators, Otto Neurath, Marie Reidemeister, and Gerd Arntz? What are we to make of the Wiener Methode today? Can it still be carried on?
I will argue that to continue the work by imitation or by simple extension is a mistake. Rather, if we look for the deeper principles behind the Viennese work, we find ideas that can be applied now, and in a vary wide set of contexts. Perhaps the deepest principle here is ‘design for meaning’. I will show examples from different areas of life in which, in the spirit of Neurath’s isotype, meaning gives life to form.”
Robin Kinross
is a typographer and publisher with hyphen press in London. His own books include modern typography as well as unjustified texts, and (with Marie Neurath) the transformer.