This leaflet introduced the name ‘Isotype’ and its associated symbol. Marie Neurath invented this name to replace ‘the Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics’, which no longer applied to work by the core group from the Social & Economic Museum of Vienna after they settled in the Netherlands in 1934.
While working on a book in Basic English – International picture language – Marie Neurath followed the principle used by C.K. Ogden in constructing the acronym ‘Basic’. She admitted that she arrived at the name ‘Isotype’ before thinking of a suitable set of words to fit it, and that she always found the solution, ‘International System of Typographic Picture Education’, a little unsatisfactory. After Otto Neurath approved the name, Gerd Arntz designed the symbol to accompany it.
The back page of the leaflet lists the organizations behind Isotype work in the Netherlands: The International Foundation for Visual Education and the Mundaneum Institute in The Hague. Intriguingly, it also lists an incorporated company ’N.V. Isotype i.o’, although it is unclear whether this ever operated. Presumably this was intended to handle more commercial work than the educational organizations.