Otto Neurath (b. 1882, d. 1945) was a diverse and intelligent man; he studied mathematics and gained his PhD in Political Science and Statistics at the University of Berlin. He dabbled in politics throughout his career and around 1919 was even interned briefly for his views.

In 1923 Neurath founded a museum called the Siedlungsmuseum which featured exhibits on housing and city planning. In 1925 he renamed the museum Gesellschafts-und Wirtschaftsmuseum in Wien (Museum of Society and Economy in Vienna) and began to develop a way to make the museum more understandable to the general public. As a child, Neurath had been fascinated with hieroglyphics and Egyptian wall art and he took concept of graphically representing information into the modern era.

Together with Gerd Arntz and Marie Reidemeister (who would become his third wife in 1941) Neurath developed a series of pictographs to represent information and statistics. The theory, initially called the Vienna Method, was changed to be called Isotype in 1935 when Neurath and his colleagues were forced to flee Austrian fascism. Isotype stands for International System of Typographical Picture Education and the best example can be found in Neurath’s book International picture language (1936).

Neurath believed in the delicate political world he found himself in, it was necessary for all people to have equal access to important economic, political and social information; he viewed Isotype as a form of visual education for the greater population.

Isotype was the precurser to modern infographics which have been extremely popular since. It is an excellent way to simplify complicated information in an engaging way.