Education For All in the Western Region
Throughout this period, Marie used her working process to learn about the cultural differences that her Isotype designs needed to transcend. She explains how she tested her work one day in a classroom, “When I came to Western Nigeria for the second time, I was able to bring proofs of some booklets with me to try them out… I saw with pleasure how the children eagerly examined the pictures… Of course, the symbols had to ‘speak’ to the Nigerians, just as they had to the Viennese; men, women, children had to look as they did [in Africa]; houses could not have chimneys; but in the essential rules of transformation, nothing needed to be changed.”
Design historian and educator Erik Kindel explains the full story of this work in “Reaching the People: Isotype Beyond the West”. One fascinating story explains how Marie customized the colors used in her work in collaboration with a local authority. “[He] also offered thoughts on the use of color: yellow, in his view, had been correctly deployed to designate a healthy person; red by contrast should represent tuberculosis because of its Yoruba associations with danger and misfortune; blue, suggesting happiness, as appropriate for depictions of treatment and protection, and for doctors.”
