SELECTED BY
MICHAEL MAHARAM
ISOTYPES
DESIGNED BY
OTTO NEURATH
El Lissitzky was commissioned by the government of the U.S.S.R. to create an album illustrating the organization, national economy, and demographic profile of the state for distribution at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. This book exhibits the use of color and layout first encountered in the legendary Pickering edition of Euclid published in 1847, a forebear of the system of ISOTYPES (International System of Typographic Picture Education) developed under the auspices of Otto Neurath at the Gesellschafts und Wirtschafts museum in Vienna between 1925 and 1934.
The vivid contrast between dry Soviet statistics on such subjects as sanatoriums and rest homes and Lissitzky’s lively and imaginative graphics is striking and illustrates the relevance and visual clarity of this simple form of graphic expression. ISOTYPES are the original analog GUI (graphical user interface) and reflect principles of information management and legibility, which virtually every business could benefit from in our increasingly content-rich world.