Types and Categories:
Two Ways of Seeing and Knowing

Matthew Wizinsky

It is a practice itself to see the diversity of form in types as distinct from the mechanistic forming of categories.

There may be two distinct, even diametrically opposed, ways of thinking that produce “types” on one hand and “categories” on the other. A type can be seen as a multiplicity in unity, in which certain practices generate a high diversity of forms with commonly identifiable characteristics. A “category” is constructed externally, often by imposition of normative parameters, taking averages or setting lowest common denominators, then subjecting each new instance to these standards. In practice, it may be difficult to discern the two.

The classical mode of inquiry, An sit, Quid sit, Quale sit? (Is it, What is it, What kind is it?), is an enduring model for rhetoric. In three short moves, any statement of “fact” is scrutinized by its existence, descriptive identification, then catalogued according to its qualities. “What kind” can also be codified, thus the universe of classification systems that establish the indices of “formal” human knowledge, from phylogenetics to literary genres. In these systems, we witness unique, local instances, or types, decontextualized and placed into categories.

The word “type,” from the Latin typus "figure, form, kind," and the Greek typos "a blow, dent, impression, mark, effect of a blow," is used here to do the productive work of slippery language. We can consider “types” both in terms of their production and reception while we simultaneously think of “type” as the visible language of “typography.” We perceive “types” and receive information through repeated exposure, or multiple impressions. Types strike forms. They impress upon us "what kind" and even more typically: “what for.”

Types produce systems, “typologies,” while categories are produced by systems of averages and boundary parameters. A typology comprises a system of identifiable instances of types. These systems nest. An alphabet is a system of legibility; a typeface or type family is an expression of the inherent potential of that system, creating a type system unto itself. A casting call for models is a system of legibility, mediated by the bodies of models. Each body is a type, but as a body’s physical measurements are subjected to numerical systems of legibility and indexicality—a type is categorized. The instrumental obsession with data and measurement transforms types into categories.

What kind? How do we understand when we are perceiving a type or being presented with a category? How does a sequence of perceptions make features evident, presenting a frame of reference, establishing an entry point that sets expectations for the unique expression—content, form, or experience—that will follow?

The four articles collected here cover diverse practices, contexts, and subjects of design and anthropological research and practice. Within and between them, we can begin to discern some of the ways that types emerge in context, shaped by an environment. As is common in design, types are generated through the interplay of repetition, variation, and creative iteration within parameters. We can also discern the construction of categories, in which types are re-presented decontextualized, generalized, as they are fit, molded, or stuffed into categories. We encounter various forms of data called upon to bear witness to types or to define the boundaries of categories.

The understanding of a text is established by continual reference between the whole and its parts; simultaneously, as the wholeness of the text is revealed, new context is established for new understanding. The same may be said for types. As we learn to read, so too do we learn to see. Sequence, repetition, and the eventual process of “seeing over,” or not noticing, accelerates our speed of perception, while also tending to decrease our awareness of the whole, including the nuance of its context. Here, “type” may mean many things: communication types, visualization types, explanative or expressive types, and even human types

“Type” and “category” may appear to blur, with edges smudged. It is a practice itself to see the diversity of form in types as distinct from the mechanistic forming of categories.

Data Making Human Types

Sadre-Orafai, Stephanie. 2016. “Models, Measurement, and the Problem of Mediation in the New York Fashion Industry.” Visual Anthropology Review 32 (2): 122–32. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12104.

Stephanie Sadre-Orafai (2016) offers an ethnographic investigation of “number regimes” in the everyday practices of modeling agencies in the world of fashion design. In these everyday practices, “agents use numbers and measurements as a discursive resource for constructing models’ bodies as particular kinds of media” ( 122). 

These “particular kinds” of media produce both unique expressions of body-as-media—types—as well as a system of categories. Each model’s body is perceived as one among many even as she strives to stand out. Sadre-Orafai identifies two distinct “number regimes” at play: a “regulatory regime” and a “development regime.” The regulatory regime, promoted by governments or oversight groups, attempts to control representations through numerical “standards” or limits, such as a minimum BMI and age. The developmental regime uses numbers, such as bodily proportions, to “develop” a young model into a potentially lucrative form of media: finding the right girl, introducing her to the market, teaching her to “come through” in images, and preparing her to compete for jobs.

The two number regimes vie with each other—the model should be particular, a type defined through the development regime, even as standardization in the regulatory regime draws the boundaries of categories. As agents recognize both the “plasticity” and “performative” nature of numbers, new and novel forms of bodily mediation emerge. Yet, we also see the boundaries of those parameters breached and made malleable.

Meanwhile, the models’ bodies “demonstrate their own agency, labor, and creativity, [but] it must be subordinated to that of other fashion producers who rely on it as a medium to circulate their own creativity and agency” (130). The modeling agency’s manual for new models states: “It’s not about YOU.” Just as the designer is subordinated to “the user,” the typographer is subordinated to “the reader,” so the model is subordinated to the “fashion producer,” which ostensibly includes photographers, stylists, and fashion designers—perhaps also “the gaze” of a public. 

Typology & Typography

Sieghart, Sabina. 2020. “The Influence of Macrotypography on the Comprehensibility of Texts in Easy-to-Read Language: An Empirical Study.” Visible Language 54 (3): 48–93. https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/4611

Sabina Sieghart (2020) describes an empirical study on the reception of visual communication “genres” among readers with low literacy skills. The study centers the German Leichte Sprache, a set of standards for making documents “easy-to-read. The typographic specifications of Leicthe Sprache include font choice of Arial “in at least 14 pt” with a wide line spacing, single columns, and images to be paired with each paragraph of text—akin to Sadre-Orafai’s “regulatory regime” (2016). Sieghart notes these specifications were implemented “without actually being tested” (52), indicating a category with little rationale.

In the study, a set of extant genres, such as poster, book, and newspaper, are compared against “different types of text” created from the Leicthe Sprache to test reception of the kinds of information they may contain (e.g., news, public postings, fiction). “The participants,” she writes, “consistently recognized genre-typical design better” ( 60). The study indicated that participants possessed “graphic knowledge” independent of the document’s content and the reader’s ability to interpret that content. This suggests that standardization across genres diminished the communicative potential of “genre.”

Sieghart speculates that perhaps lack of reading ability has attuned the participants to “a particularly precise power of observation” (84). Perhaps. Although, it seems likely that even hyper-literate readers might make similar observations on a preconscious level before moving from “genre recognition” to reading. Types are identifiable, in part, due to purpose and context; a poster and a newspaper operate quite differently. Types work by differentiation in context; categories by decontextualization and homogenization.

Image Credits 

Jain 2020, 227. The caption reads: “Lochlann Jain, Wet Wing, London, 2015. Photo by Lochlann Jain.” 

Sieghart 2020, 57. The caption reads: “Test sheets with dummy texts and distorted images.” 

Visual Data as Communicative Type

 Trogu, Pino. 2018. “Counting but Losing Count: The Legacy of Otto Neurath’s Isotype Charts.” Visible Language 52 (2): 82–109. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/visiblelanguage/pdf/52.2/counting-but-losing-count-the-legacy-of-otto-neuraths-isotype-charts.pdf

Pino Trogu (2018) revisits the birth of a genre and offers critical reflection on its endurance despite inherent limitations. Austrian philosopher Otto Neurath dreamt of an international “picture language” that might achieve universality—the notion that images could somehow override the cultural distinctions between languages. This was part of his vision of an egalitarian form of “visual education” that could break down social and economic hierarchies. Noble as it may sound, the modernist conceit of a “trans-cultural immediacy” to be found in pictures fails to recognize the cultural constructs also inherent to images and image-making. As Trogu argues, “Images in themselves are no more or less universal than words are. …Not only words, but pictures as well, need a sense of culture behind them, a sense of convention, and intention, that helps to disambiguate them” (93; 92).

ISOTYPE signs represent both quantity and quality—who or what each symbol represents. It is in this synthesis that quantity and category merge. Neatly aligned rows of evenly spaced images are a familiar genre in the recent widespread use of “infographics.” (One can also think of the legions of tiny icons that make up “dashboards” such as app icons displayed on device homescreens, despite the different contexts and purposes of these.) Aside from ignoring cultural distinction, the ISOTYPE chart is shown to be less effective than other visual forms of quantitative information due to its strategy (technique) of “counting.” In light of more recent research in psychology, most notably George Miller’s “magic number seven” and the concept of information “chunking” as well as insights into “working memory,” ISOTYPE require cognitive maneuvers more complex than bar charts and/or the use of numerical scales. What might have worked well in the context of small collections of symbols did not extend beyond it. When displaying highly divergent quantities of individual symbols, it appears that the ISOTYPE, as a type, extended beyond itself. As a category, the ISOTYPE stopped working well as it began to require too much counting.

Nonetheless, Trogu shows through contemporary examples of stacked bar charts that “charts derived from Isotype endure and surround us with their aligned, repeated symbols” (91). “Designers today cannot accept Isotype’s axioms without reservations or questioning, simply because they originated in the teachings of a revered historical figure” (103).  In effect, we have in the case of Otto and Marie Neurtah, a type that endures despite its contradictions and, perhaps in some cases, in spite of its limitations.

Beyond the Category of Ethnographic Essay

Jain, S. Lochlann. 2020. “Commodity Violence: The Punctum of Data.” Visual Anthropology Review 36 (2): 212–33. https://doi.org/10.1111/var.12213.

S. Lochlann Jain (2020) demonstrates how to use visual and performative methods for anthropologists to disseminate their ethnographic research. Based on a case study of the author’s work on the violence of automobility, Jain challenges the enduring primacy of the “ethnographic essay”—to wit, writing—as the dominant category of research authority, even in highly visual domains of ethnographic inquiry. “Textual sophistry, to the exclusion of other modes of knowledge production,” Jain writes, “has been the core practice of anthropology, for better and worse” (217) Against this dominance, Jain argues for an “ethnographic approach to image-making” that might “develop visual vocabularies that exceed the purpose of illustrating extant ideas and concepts in the field” (214). One wonders if the pursuit of such practices might yield a robust system of visual vocabularies, new types of visual ethnographies—a new typology?

Three “hazards” of writing are identified. First: writing cleans up the messiness of fieldwork whereas visual expressions of that work—not just images as data points—can make visible the “thick” descriptions of ethnography. Two: Excessive citation of a small set of canonical scholars runs the risk of “citational and theoretical cliché” (218). If ethnographic essays have to continually cite their way through the same gatekeepers, the results will be bound up in misogynistic and other oppressive “genres.” Third: Mastery of the craft of writing can override the “content.” The “ethnographic essay” builds on an author’s ability to apply clever turns of phrase in the construction of a persuasive text. This leads the essay to foreground writing as the default and dominant category of knowledge production, placing the textual outcome over and above the research itself.  Writing subsumes the fieldwork, data collection, conceptual synthesis, and so on.  “A peer reviewer can evaluate quality based only on form and resort to common sense and personal valuations of likelihood” (218). Images are data; they are not facts. When treated as types, they contain local context; when categorized, they are stripped of that context. Making visual forms central to ethnographic rhetoric suggests a different mode of translation.