ABSTRACT
Christopher Burke (2013) has commented that the Isotype idea of the ‘transformer’ can be regarded as ‘a prototype of the modern information designer’, echoing Robin Kinross’s view that transformation gives Isotype a place ‘in the large and fruitful eld of design for meaning.’ Kinross continues: ‘In this way of working, one tries as a designer (in the widest sense of the word) to make sense of the material and let it nd good order, both for the sake of the material itself and for the sake of the people reading and using it’ (see Neurath and Kinross 2009, 77-8). Marie Neurath’s retrospective explanation was based on a lifetime’s work:
The children’s books produced by the Isotype Institute in London provide an excellent example of what transformation entailed, supported by notes and sketches in the Otto and Marie Neurath Isotype Collection at the University of Reading.1
