Style combination · Contrasts

Isotype Pictorial Statistics × Thai Yantra Diagrams

Both are diagrams built from rules: Isotype makes meaning legible to everyone, a yantra encodes it for initiates; the opposition is useful for thinking about who a diagram is for.

From the research on Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams

Mix them and make something Isotype Pictorial Statistics Thai Yantra Diagrams

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Isotype Pictorial Statistics, their arrangement from Thai Yantra Diagrams, the finish from Thai Yantra Diagrams. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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 Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams

Type from Thai Yantra Diagrams: Hand-lettering
Tight setting
Colour from Isotype Pictorial Statistics: Flat fields
Limited spot colours
Form from Isotype Pictorial Statistics: Pictogram
Stylised figuration
Composition from Thai Yantra Diagrams: Central symmetry
Framed panels
Surface from Thai Yantra Diagrams: Carved line
Flat

The type

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

Display · Thai Yantra Diagrams

Together

Yatra One; Thai Yantra Diagrams used Khom Thai (akson khom), the Khmer-derived script used for Pali formulae and heart syllables and Mul (round) Khmer script in Cambodian-lineage yantras, distinguishable from Khom only by small variants

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

The colours

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

Isotype Pictorial Statistics Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams

#f2ecdf ground · 36%
#1a1a1a ink · 14%
#c8372d accent · 18%
#d9b44a accent · 14%
#2c5aa0 accent · 10%
#8a5a3b accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f2ecdf;
  --ink: #1a1a1a;
  --accent-1: #c8372d;
  --accent-2: #d9b44a;
  --accent-3: #2c5aa0;
  --accent-4: #8a5a3b;
  --font-display: "Yatra One", cursive;
  --font-text: "Jost", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams: Yantras are consecrated Buddhist and Brahmanic protective diagrams in living use: their Khom formulae are incantations, sak yant are given by monks and ajarn within master–disciple lineages under precepts the wearer must keep, and pha yant are blessed objects hung high over doors. Do not use real or imitation yantras, Khom letters or Buddha images as texture, logos, fashion prints or tattoos without a master, do not place them low (on floors, footwear, seats) or crop and mirror them, do not invent pseudo-Khom, and work with Thai practitioners and readers of Khom rather than tracing designs from temples or tattoo photographs. Image models cannot write Khom and will invent letters: in generated images leave the cells blank or set legible secular Thai, and never present the result as a real or working yantra.

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. 1700–present · Southeast Asia Thai Yantra (Yant) Diagrams Thai protective diagrams in which Pali formulae, written in Khom, a sacred script derived from Khmer, are packed into squares, circles, triangles, spires and the outlines of Buddhas, monks and tigers, often framed by lines of script. Built from formulae attested in Khom inscriptions since the 15th century and drawn in manuals that survive from the late Ayutthaya period, they are printed in one ink on cheap cloth as pha yant and hung over doors, and tattooed by monks and ajarn as sak yant, such as the nine-spired Gao Yord of Wat Bang Phra.