The Transformer

The visual work of Otto Neurath and his associates, a simple, universal and non-verbal language now known as Isotype, has been at the center of many debates in recent years. The Transformer is a condensed presentation of the fundamental principles on which it is based: the work of "transformation", or how to give information a visual form. This deeper dimension of their work - which can be applied to all areas of design - is now systematically abandoned on the simple pretext that the Isotype is only a matter of rows of pictograms. At the heart of this work is an unpublished text by Marie Neurath, the main transformer of the Isotype, written in the last year of her life. In addition to this first-hand account, there is a series of comments by Robin Kinross concerning illustrated examples of Isotype's work as well as a set of brief complementary texts. Marie Neurath, Robin Kinross