Stylogeny combining Isotype Pictorial Statistics × Legible City Wayfinding

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Style combination · Contrasts

Isotype Pictorial Statistics × Legible City Wayfinding

Both turn information into friendly pictures, but Isotype counts identical pictograms in rows while these maps draw particular buildings in their place.

From the research on Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps)

Mix them and make something Isotype Pictorial Statistics Legible City Wayfinding

GridIsotype Pictorial × Legible City1925 · 1999
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Isotype Pictorial Statistics, their arrangement from Isotype Pictorial Statistics, the finish from Isotype Pictorial Statistics. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Isotype Pictorial Statistics Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps)

Type from Legible City Wayfinding
Colour from Legible City Wayfinding
Form from Isotype Pictorial Statistics
Composition from Isotype Pictorial Statistics
Surface from Isotype Pictorial Statistics

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The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Legible City Wayfinding

Grid

Fira Sans, standing in for New Johnston, Transport for London's corporate humanist sans, used by AIG as Legible London's identifying font on its vitreous enamel and steel signs

Text · Isotype Pictorial Statistics

A method of visual education developed by Otto Neurath, Marie Neurath (Reidemeister) and Gerd Arntz in Red Vienna from 1925, which turns statistics into rows of identical pictograms where a greater quantity is shown by more signs, never by bigger ones. Continued in The Hague and Oxford until 1971, its standardised symbols, flat colours and sans-serif captions laid the foundations of modern information graphics and pictogram systems.

Jost; Isotype Pictorial Statistics used Futura and Gerd Arntz's linocut pictogram set (c. 4,000 signs), used like a fount of picture-type

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The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Legible City Wayfinding, with a counter-accent from Isotype Pictorial Statistics. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Isotype Pictorial Statistics Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps)

  • #f2f1ec ground · 36%
  • #2b3640 ink · 14%
  • #ffd100 accent · 18%
  • #c8372d accent · 14%
  • #a9c8de accent · 10%
  • #2c5aa0 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2f1ec;
  --ink: #2b3640;
  --accent-1: #ffd100;
  --accent-2: #c8372d;
  --accent-3: #a9c8de;
  --accent-4: #2c5aa0;
  --font-display: "Fira Sans", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

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The two styles

A cream-coloured infographic headed “TO SCHOOL” shows rows of red pedestrians, blue cyclists, green buses, brown cars and black scooter riders, labelled 20, 12, 8, 6 and 4. Buildings, four round green trees and a red schoolhouse form a strip along the bottom. 1925–1971 · Central Europe, Western Europe Isotype Pictorial Statistics A method of visual education developed by Otto Neurath, Marie Neurath (Reidemeister) and Gerd Arntz in Red Vienna from 1925, which turns statistics into rows of identical pictograms where a greater quantity is shown by more signs, never by bigger ones. Continued in The Hague and Oxford until 1971, its standardised symbols, flat colours and sans-serif captions laid the foundations of modern information graphics and pictogram systems. A wayfinding poster headed “Explore Nearby” shows a circular street map with waterways, green parks, landmark icons, and dashed five- and ten-minute walking rings around a yellow location marker. A legend sits at the upper right, with walking times and directions to four destinations along the bottom. 1999–present · Western Europe, North America, Global / networked Legible City Wayfinding (Heads-Up Pedestrian Maps) City-wide pedestrian wayfinding in which the sign is a map. Free-standing totems such as Legible London's Monolith, Midilith and Minilith carry 'heads-up' maps turned to the way the reader faces, a 'you are here' point ringed by a five-minute walking circle (fifteen minutes on the larger planner maps), and key landmarks drawn as small buildings on a flat street plan (in three dimensions in Bristol and London). A calm sans, high-contrast panels and one identifying accent, such as London's yellow top strip, make a single system of streets, stations, bus shelters and printed maps.

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More combinations

With Isotype Pictorial Statistics

All 32 combinations with Isotype Pictorial Statistics

With Legible City Wayfinding

Every style combination