contemporary Isotype descendant

by way of a post in the GOOD Magazine blog, http://www.good.is/?p=13752

The post indicates that this is a public service video released in order for the Japanese to deal with the emerging food cost/import/use of oil crisis. The execution and intent I notice are very similar to that of Neurath's ISOTYPES, simplified images and primary colors are used to create symbols which represent quantities and relationships between sets of data which might otherwise be complex, but whose comprehension by the majority of society is nessecary in order to resolve a current issue. Obviously the major difference is the dimension of time, which I think was used beautifully, showing how time affects the data as well as using time to narrow which data the audience learns in which order. The clip of two people sitting at a table and the food presented in front of them, is in itself a representation of a certain piece of data, and this is cemented in the viewer's mind each time the clip is repeated (even though the food changes). The two people sitting at the table with food in front of them is a universal communication that these people are going to consume this food.

The blog post also directs one to the US government's public service database, which at minimal investigation is filled with mostly live-action tapings about things the majority of society neither has any interest in, or even knows what is. Interesting.

Otto Neurath..

Was amazing. Invented ISOTYPES (International System of Typographic Picture Education) in order to help facilitate the rebuilding of Germany and Austria after WWI by making the situation easier to understand for the common people so they would get behind all the plans. The aim was a more universal self-explanatory visual representation. "Neurath believed that, in the same way that the cathedral was the bible of the illiterate in the Middle Ages, his visual system would allow common people to grasp statistical data, making them more informed and better citizens." from Uncharted Kahn: The Visuality of Planning and Promotion by Andrew M Shanken, Art Bulletin June 2006 p 317

Insane collection of book and magazine scans on Neurath and ISOTYPES
http://www.fulltable.com/iso/index.htm

His ideas are similar to that of Wurman's, in that we can all be liberated if only we could better digest the information around us. Span the distance with good design!