The Vienna Method in Amsterdam: Peter Alma's Office for Pictorial Statistics

Over the course of the 1930s, the Dutch artist and designer, Peter Alma, produced an extensive body of information graphics. Working for a wide variety of corporate clients seeking to provide social and economic information to general audiences, Alma was one of the principal Dutch practitioners and promoters of the approach to information design known as the “Vienna Method of Pictorial Statistics,” initially developed by the social scientist Otto Neurath and the graphic artist Gerd Arntz. In addition to providing an account of Alma's role in the further development and dissemination of this method, this essay assesses the nature of Alma's contribution to the field of visual education and considers the place of his pictorial statistics production within his broader artistic oeuvre.