Isotype children’s books: approaches to visual organisation and graphic techniques for explanation

Isotype children’s books: approaches to visual organisation and graphic techniques for explanation

Walker, Sue

Full Article:

The children’s books produced by the Isotype Institute in the middle decades of the twentieth century used a remarkable range of approaches and graphic techniques to explain often complex and difficult things. These approaches and techniques formed part of a toolkit used by Marie Neurath and her team in the transformation of complex information so that young readers could understand it. Having a number of tried and tested approaches meant they could work very quickly, and between the end of the 1940s and the start of the 1970s over eighty books were produced, even more if you count translations into other languages. This paper presents examples of the books and looks at some of the ways that often complicated ideas were explained to children through visual means. The images are taken from books in the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection at the University of Reading.

The children’s books produced by the Isotype Institute in the middle decades of the twentieth century used a remarkable range of approaches and graphic techniques to explain often complex and difficult things. These approaches and techniques formed part of a toolkit used by Marie Neurath and her team in the transformation of complex information so that young readers could understand it. Having a number of tried and tested approaches meant they could work very quickly, and between the end of the 1940s and the start of the 1970s over eighty books were produced, even more if you count translations into other languages. This paper presents examples of the books and looks at some of the ways that often complicated ideas were explained to children through visual means. The images are taken from books in the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection at the University of Reading.

Palavras-chave:

DOI: 10.5151/designpro-CIDI-116

Como citar:

Walker, Sue; "Isotype children’s books: approaches to visual organisation and graphic techniques for explanation", p-1239-1253. In: In Coutinho, Solange G.; Moura, Monica; Campello, Silvio Barreto; Cadena, Renata A.; Almeida, Swanne (orgs.). Proceedings of the 6th Information Design International Conference, 5th InfoDesign, 6th CONGIC [= Blucher Design Proceedings, num.2, vol.1]. São Paulo: Blucher, 2014.
ISSN 23186968, DOI 10.5151/designpro-CIDI-116