Definitions and explanations: Heiroglyph, meaning "sacred carving" in Greek, most commonly refer to Egyptian hieroglyphs, the formal writing system used by the ancient Egyptians that contained a combination of logographic and alphabetic elements.
An Isotype, in graphic design and sociology, is a system of pictograms to communicate information in a simple, non-verbal way. Isotype stands for International System of TYpographic Picture Education. The Isotype system was designed in the 1920s by Austrian educator and philosopher Otto Neurathand artist and illustrator Gerd Arntz, along with Neurathand's future wife, Marie Reidemeister. posted by filthy light thief at 2:38 PM on August 6, 2009
This is either really cool or cack. brb posted by @troy at 3:11 PM on August 6, 2009
An exhaustive set of Gerd Arntz' pictograms are online at the Gerd Arntz Web Archive. It's pretty amazing stuff. posted by sixswitch at 3:51 PM on August 6, 2009
God dammit. I kept reading 'isotopes' and I've been looking for a good nerdy science tattoo idea with those for years. Also I thought it would be cool to learn that Egyptians were some kind of insane, ancient geochemists. So I'm just disappointed on all fronts. posted by six-or-six-thirty at 4:15 PM on August 6, 2009
posted by yegga at 2:33 PM on August 6, 2009