Information Design of the 1950s

This is one example of why I enjoy historical research: you find all kinds of cool things. Here’s a low-tech but very adequate information graphic from 1954:

Apparently this was prepared by administrators at dear auld ISU back in the early days of President James H. Hilton.

This object delighted me because, while it’s so charmingly basic, it’s still very like what I do 61 years later. The tools are different today, and the results probably a bit more professional in appearance. But for all of its near-steampunk material origins—apparently colored pencils and a typewriter—this gets the job done in a fairly neat and efficient fashion.

Nowadays, of course, we have so much automatic digital precision that you occasionally see something like this as an effect, to suggest “authenticity” or something. Usually, though, it’s simulated using software filters and textures.

This is the pure stuff, here.