P-M
September 1937
Laszlo Matulay, Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]
Robert L. Leslie and Percy Seitlin [Editors]: P-M [An Intimate Journal For Art Directors, Production Managers, and their Associates]. New York: The Composing Room/P.M. Publishing Co., Volume 4, No. 1: September 1937. Original edition. Slim 12mo. Four-color offset yapped wrappers. 34 [6] pp. Illustrated text and advertisements. Cover by Laszlo Matulay. Yapped wrappers edge worn and soiled, but a very good or better copy.
This volume measures 5.5 x 7.75 with 40 pages of articles and advertisements. Contents include
- Type Designs of the Past and Present - by Stanley Morison
- Laszlo Matulay [designed by Laszlo Matulay]
- Language in Pictures - Development and uses of Pictorial Statistics: Rudolf Modley [Executive Director, Pictorial Statistics, Inc.]. Modley was a student of Otto Neurath who brought the Isotype theories to the US. He founded the Pictograph Corporation in 1934 after working for the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Modley produced a number of large dictionaries and handbooks.
- PM / A-D Shorts: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy announces New Bauhaus; Georg Salter; Richard T. Salmon; Tom Holloway; Otto W. Fuhrmann
- Listing of Advertisements: The Composing Room; Merganthaler - Linotype Co.; Intertype; Reliance Reproduction Co.; Offset Printing Plate Co.; Select Printing Co.; Flower Electrotypes.
Laszlo Matulay began his career in his native Vienna. He left Austria in 1934 and came to New York. His illustration work was used in tapestries, book jackets, murals and advertising. In addition his work has been exhibited by the New York Public Library. He served on the faculty at the Laboratory School of Industrial Arts.
A visual program for displaying facts and quantitative information, the ISOTYPE system was born from research and theories of Otto Neurath (1882–1945), a Viennese philosopher, economist and social scientist. As a child he was fascinated by the function of Egyptian hieroglyphics—their forms and ability to communicate a story. This early influence was integrated into his life's work, the development of a system to pictorially organize statistics.
During the 1920's Neurath was a leading figure in a circle of Viennese intellectuals known as the Logical Positivists. In 1929 he helped author the group's manifesto, The Scientific Conception of the World, The Vienna Circle. The Positivists declared that philosophies founded in religion, metaphysics and ethics were merely expressions of feelings or desires and therefore lacked any cognitive sense. They asserted that true meaning could only be found in mathematics, logic, and natural sciences.
In 1925 Neurath, while head of a housing museum, initiated The Social and Economic Museum of Vienna. The museum's purpose was to educate the general public about post-war housing by creating displays of social information. The new venue afforded him an opportunity to showcase his intellectual and educational ideals using his symbol-based language — an alternative to written language.
By the early 1930's Neurath headed a team of 25 employees divided into four groups: Data Collectors: Comprised of historians, statisticians and economists. Transformers: Visual editors and liaisons between the data collectors and the graphic artists. Graphic Artists: Illustrators who drew the symbols and artwork. Technical Assistants: Assisted in paste-up, coloring and photography.
While working at the museum Neurath began his collaboration with Marie Reidemeister, who would later become his wife. Reidemeister was educated as a physicist, mathematician and also had attended art school. She and fellow senior transformer Friedrich Bauermeister, organized the information into comprehensible formats, in a role that would be described today as a graphic designer.
An essential member of the Neurath group was German artist Gerd Arntz (1901–1988) who joined the ISOTYPE team in 1928. Well educated and from a comfortable background, Arntz became an activist who embraced the same socialist ideals as Neurath. Artistically he was influenced by the Expressionist and Constructivist movements, expressing his socialist values through primitive wood block printing. Visual education was always the prime motive behind ISOTYPE. It was not intended to replace verbal language, rather it was a “helping language” accompanied by verbal elements. Neurath was deeply convinced that his "world language without words" would not only enhance education but facilitate international understanding.
Neurath rejected histograms with numerical scales, pie charts and continuous line charts for a method that displayed facts in a more easily understood form, numbers were represented by a series of identical pictorial elements or signs, each of them representing a defined quantity. While his contemporaries showed variation by altering the size of their symbols, Neurath increased or reduced the quantity of symbols, each symbol representing a specific amount. Neurath called these "amount pictures" or "number pictures."
PM magazine was the leading voice of the U. S. Graphic Arts Industry from its inception in 1934 to its end in 1942 (then called AD). As a publication produced by and for professionals, it spotlighted cutting-edge production technology and the highest possible quality reproduction techniques (from engraving to plates). PM and A-D also championed the Modern movement by showcasing work from the vanguard of the European Avant-Garde well before this type of work was known to a wide audience.