Areas of research
Isotype occupies an important place in the history of twentieth-century design. To better gauge its historical significance and continuing relevance, Isotype's scope and influence require some re-evaluation and expansion.
'Isotype revisited' has several objectives. The project will review Vienna Method / Isotype approaches to pictorial language and visual education by tracking their evolving character between 1925 and 1970. In doing so, and by making known Isotype's wider sphere of activities and interests, the notion that it was concerned only with pictorial statistics will be redressed. Isotype will be further complicated by comparing its 'core' work with the efforts of adherents, imitators, and popularizers. And, in looking back from a present-day perspective, the project will consider Isotype's place in twentieth-century design history, and its influence on graphic communication today.
Specific areas of research include:
- the development of the Gesellschafts- und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Vienna (Burke)
- the Vienna Method in schools (Burke)
- Modern man in the making (Burke)
- Otto and Marie Neurath in exile (Burke)
- the Izostat Institute, Moscow (Minns)
- Otto Neurath's 'Visual autobiography' (Eve, Burke)
- Otto Neurath as collector (Eve)
- Isotype and documentary film-making (Eve)
- Isotype children's books (Walker)
- Isotype in British colonial West Africa (Kindel)
- Isotype's influence post-1970 (Perks)
- Isotype and data visualization (Kindel)
