Pictographs
Otl Aicher was the German artist who's work for the Munich Olympics resulted in the modern pictograph. There's something about the versatility of the isotype; as though pop art was run through the corporate sterilization machine and then set to global themes. Clean lines and sharp contrasts. Modernism.
But if Aicher wanted to glom mankind under a single, universal symbol his predecessor, Gerd Arntz, pushed a little harder at socio-economic stereotypes through imagery. Sure, he was under contract to do so, but the results are often jarring in their starkness.
Right now I am obsessed with isotypes. Not for any particular reason. But I can't seem to get the IIT Meis Wallpaper we saw at the MOMA last year out of my head.
