InfoD-Cafe: Male & Female figures on restroom doors

[Robin Kinross]

Piet Westendorp:

> Does anyone know something about the origin of the male and female
> figures on restroom doors?
> Oldest examples?
> Could there be any relation with the figures that Gerd Arntz designed
> for Neuraths ISOTYPE figures?

No idea about the origin of the toilet symbols.

If you mention the Isotype symbols, it must be worth making these  
points:

that these symbols were designed to be repeated, also occasionally  
cut in half, and still work or 'read' visually in this repetition and  
halving. And also that they were designed to work *together*, so that  
a symbol for (let's say) wheat, made a visual equivalence -- and yet  
remain visually distinct from -- a symbol for (let's say) oil.

In this respect the Isotype symbols needed different visual qualities  
from a symbol for (let's say) a women's toilet, or a 'slippery  
surface ahead' sign. Such informative and warning symbols only need  
to exist on their own -- one of them in one location at a time -- and  
in a looser visual relation to any other symbols that might  
constitute the set to which they belong.

Look closely at the Isotype symbols with repeatability and  
halvability in mind --

Another thing to say is that the Isotype symbols (from 1928 to 1940)  
were designed by Gerd Arntz in critical dialogue with Otto Neurath. A  
full account would recognize Neurath's role in their design. I think  
he was one of those design bosses who was never quite happy, and  
wanted to go on suggesting changes up to the last moment. There were  
times (for example, in the advisory work they did in the Soviet  
Union) when Arntz was quite glad to be free of his demanding colleague!

Robin Kinross