Isotype in Africa: Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and the Western Region of Nigeria, 1952–8

Kindel, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9995-5891 (2013) Isotype in Africa: Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and the Western Region of Nigeria, 1952–8. In: Burke, C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0391-3740, Kindel, E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9995-5891 and Walker, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5942-1836 (eds.) Isotype: design and contexts, 1925–1971. Hyphen Press, London. ISBN 9780907259473

Abstract/Summary

A review of work done by the Isotype Institute in the 1940s and 1950s, associated with Africa. The chapter discusses Otto Neurath's growing interest in the last years of his life in the issue of presenting information to (West) Africans through Isotype methods. Although this interest was not realised by Otto Neurath in the form of completed work during his lifetime, Marie Neurath and the Isotype Institute did successfully carry out numerous projects in Britain's West African colonies during the 1950s, in Sierra Leone, Gold Coast (Ghana), and most extensively in the Western Region of Nigeria. Discussion of these projects illustrates the means by which Isotype work was carried out in a developing world context, the difficulties that were encountered, and the issues of effectiveness and sustainability the work raised.