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The Woodies have a blog. It’s a kind of collective. Not sure we’re about to start a revolution baby, but we might kindle a small debate or two and perhaps raise a smile. Anyway, rather than just blogging corporate Woodreed by fielding our top Woodie (as so many other companies seem to do in a thinly veiled attempt at impressing with their profundity), we wanted all our individual voices to be heard. An agency’s most valuable assets are its people after all. Everyone’s got something to say here and with us everyone’s ideas and opinions matter.

Each week someone different will be blogging. It's mostly about stuff that rocks our world as well as the flipside – the things that just don't cut it with us. We'll blog about inside and outside – inside this glorious industry where we work and outside in the real world.
It's a bit of an experiment, so go with us on this one.

Hope you enjoy.

Thursday 24 February 2011

How words divide and pictures unite


I've just realised I'm in love with infographics - you know, they say a picture is worth a thousand words but just take a look at the mother of them all - ISOTYPE.

International System of Typographic Picture Education was created by Otto Neurath and designed by Gerd Arntz in the 1920s. Neurath believed that since a considerable part of the information to which we're exposed is optically processed, information must be visualised and data transformed into pictures in order to be seen at all.

The system of typographic picture education they developed uses repeated, consistent graphic "'pictograms", to represent numerical data. The higher the number, the more times the pictogram is repeated. Isotype made statistics and facts available to the whole population. It became a tool for social reformers – and propagandists – throughout the last century.


I just love its elegant simplicity. Take a look here at the absolute classic beauty and simplicity of the vast array of graphics, all originally made as linocuts


There's an exhibition all about it at the V&A (Room 17a) until 13th March 2011.
Class outing anyone?
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2 comments:

  1. Charlotte28 February 2011 at 01:25

    They are mini works of art in their own right. How often are the best ideas also the most simple?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dave Wilson4 March 2011 at 09:25

    They don't look dated in any way. they look fresh yet so functional. Bit like me.

    ReplyDelete

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