Image Factories. Infographics 1920-1945: Fritz Kahn, Otto Neurath et al.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the newly emerging mass media began circulating an unwonted volume of information, leading to a huge surge in visualization. The abundance of news required new forms of representation to provide a quick understanding of complex circumstances at a glance: this prompted the invention of infographics as a visual medium. The exhibition Transformer: On Infographics as Media of Modernity is dedicated to the pioneering infographics of Fritz Kahn und Otto Neurath and presents historical material and imagery from 1920 to 1945 along with contemporary infographics and a series of essays. The publication accompanies the exhibition at the German Museum of Books and Writing in the German National Library in Leipzig (8 September 2017 – 7 January 2018), also serving as a guide to the exhibition, divided up into individual sections.

Text: Stephanie Jacobs, Patrick Rössler, Helena Doudova, Bernd Stiegler, Otto Neurath