Symbolenboek voor onderwijs en statistiek (Symbols for education and statistics: 1928–1965)

The graphic symbols that have been collected together in this volume constitute a selection from among the more than 4000 symbols designed by the graphic artist Gerd Arntz between 1928 and 1956. (We can’t bring ourselves to count how many symbols are here, but there are 117 leaves of them. If there are 12 symbols per leaf, that means there are over 1,400 symbols!) Their most important function was to be used in picture-statistics. When this was published, the originals were held in the Print Room of the Gemeente Museum in The Hague. (It’s now called The Kunstmuseum Den Haag.) The pace-setter behind the idea of picture statistics was the Viennese sociologist and philosopher Dr. Otto Neurath (1882–1945). This brilliant scholar was particularly interested in trying to find ways of making socio-economic facts accessible and comprehensible to wide sections of the population. He sought a means of democratizing knowledge. Then he found Arntz, whose prints were clear and simple—and perfect for creating universal symbols. Together they worked to create a visual language for the display of quantitive information. Arntz kept a series of loose leaf folders of these symbols and in 1940 they numbered 1,140. (Eleven hundred and forty symbols, not folders. See why words are tricky?) This collection is based on Arntz’s principle: loose leaves, systematically arranged. An authoritative (and humbling) collection with showings of the symbols in action and illustrations for the process of making them. WorldCat shows just three copies in the US at Penn, Carnegie Mellon, and U of IL.