The Bauhaus and the New Typography Graphic Design History
The Bauhaus and the New Typography
Graphic Design History
“It is obvious that the machine is here to stay…Let us then exploit it to create beauty – modern beauty.”
‐ Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World), 1928
Bauhaus • German Design School (1919 – 1933) 3 locaBons (Weimar, Dessau, Berlin)
• Name means “House of ConstrucBon” in German Concern for quality design in an industrial society • Also known as the Interna7onal Style • Founded on idea of bringing together all the areas of art and applied arts Combined various styles together – Medieval, Expressionism, Cubism, ConstrucBvism, De SBjl, etc.
• Hugely influen7al in areas of modern design, including graphic design and typography, architecture, furniture, product design
• Closed by the Nazis in 1933 – they thought it was a center of Communist intellectualism
Teachers and students from Bauhaus moved to other countries aUerwards and con7nued to have an influence on Modern design
Walter Gropius, Bauhaus building in Dessau, Germany (workshop), 1925‐26
Walter Gropius
• Gropius founded the Bauhaus • Director from 1919 – 1928 • Architect with an interna7onal reputa7on for factory designs using glass
and steel in new ways (designed the Bauhaus buildings at Dessau) • Gropius sought a new unity of art and technology
• Gropius believed that form follows func7on • Enlisted a generaBon of arBsts to solve problems of visual design created
by industrialism
Lyonel Feininger Cathedral Woodcut 1919
• From the 7tle page of the Bauhaus Manifesto
• Bauhaus years in Weimar, Germany
(1919‐24) drew inspira7on from Expressionism
• Utopian desire to create a new spiritual
society • Gothic cathedral represents the longing
for spiritual beauty that was disappearing
• Symbolizes the integra7on of
architecture, sculpture, pain7ng, and craGs
The Bauhaus Manifesto, published in German newspapers, established the philosophy of the new school:
The complete building is the ulBmate aim of all the visual arts. Once the noblest funcBon of the fine arts was to embellish buildings; they were indispensable components of great architecture. Today the arts exist in isolaBon…Architects, painters, and sculptors must learn anew the composite character of the building as an enBty…The arBst is an exalted craUsman. In rare moments of inspiraBon, transcending his conscious will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craU is essenBal to every arBst. Therein lies the prime source of creaBve imaginaBon.
First Bauhaus Seal Johannes Auerbach 1919
First Bauhaus Seal Johannes Auerbach 1919
• Original seal (logo) of the school
• Chosen in a student design compe77on
• Inspired by Expressionism
• Style and imagery expresses the medieval and craG affiniBes of the early Bauhaus
Later Bauhaus Seal Oscar Schlemmer 1922
Bauhaus quickly evolved from an interest in Medievalism, Expressionism, and handicraG toward more emphasis on ra7onalism and designing for the machine age
1919 1922
Johannes Icen Page from Utopia: Documents of Reality 1921
Johannes Icen Page from Utopia: Documents of Reality (an early Bauhaus document), 1921
• Johannes IPen (1888 – 1967) was one of the first “Masters” at the Bauhaus (tradiBonal Master / ApprenBce system)
• Icen was a Swiss painter, designer, writer, teacher, theorist
• Icen taught the preliminary courses (first year). His goals were to release each student’s creaBve abiliBes, to develop an understanding of the physical nature of materials, and to teach the fundamental principles of design underlying all visual art
• Icen’s work emphasized visual contrasts
• Symmetrical, but unconven7onal placement of type, variety of typefaces
Joost Schmidt Bauhaus Exhibi@on Poster 1923
Joost Schmidt Bauhaus Exhibi@on Poster 1923
• Poster adver7ses the Bauhaus design school • Incorporates Schlemmer’s logo into the
design • Geometric and machine forms
• All students were required to take two terms of “lecering design” taught by Schmidt. With his teaching, Schmidt strove for the comprehensive reform of lePering, which was to be validated and standardized interna7onally. The Bauhaus designers mostly used Sans Serif typefaces.
Herbert Bayer universal alphabet
1925
Herbert Bayer universal alphabet
1925
• Herbert Bayer was first a student at the Bauhaus who was later hired to teach Typography and Graphic Design at Bauhaus
• Bayer created an alphabet composed of one set of geometrically constructed characters. He omiPed capital lePers arguing that upper and lower case lecers are incompaBble in design
• Clear, simple, ra7onal
• The Bauhaus used Sans Serif almost exclusively
• Type maximizes differences between lePers for greater legibility
Herbert Bayer Cover Design, Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, 1921‐1923 1923
Herbert Bayer Cover Design, Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, 1921‐1923 1923
• Cover Design for Exhibi7on Catalog which was a record of the first years of the Bauhaus
• Created when Bayer was a student
• Geometrically constructed lePerforms within a square format • Red and blue on a black background
creates a dynamic effect
Herbert Bayer, Exhibi@on Poster, 1926
Herbert Bayer, Exhibi@on Poster, 1926
• Poster design for exhibi7on of Wassily Kandinsky’s work
• Kandinsky taught at the
Bauhaus and was an influenBal Russian Expressionist painter and theorist
• Type and image are arranged in a func7onal progression of size and weight from the most important informaBon to supporBng details
• Diagonal movement ‐ dynamic
Herbert Bayer Cover for Bauhaus Magazine
1928
Herbert Bayer Cover for Bauhaus Magazine
1928
• Photographic s7ll life of designer’s tools, basic geometric forms, and typography
• Bauhaus Magazine was highly influen7al in the art and design world
• First Bauhaus Magazine published in December 1926 to coincide with the opening of the new Bauhaus building in Dessau
Herbert Bayer Proposed Street Car Sta@on and Newsstand 1924
Herbert Bayer Proposed Street Car Sta@on and Newsstand 1924
• The Bauhaus Corpora7on, a business organizaBon was added to handle the sale of workshop prototypes to industry. The Bauhaus created designs that influenced 20th Century life: designs for furniture, various products, func7onal architecture, environmental spaces, and typography
• Modular Unit designed for mass producBon
• Geometric Form with primary colors, black and white represenBng purity of form
• Open wai7ng area, newsstand, adver7sing panels on the rooUop
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Proposed Title page for Broom 1923
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Proposed Title page for Broom 1923
• Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy was a Hungarian construc7vist who first studied law and then turned to art. He loved to experiment in a variety of mediums, including painBng, photography, film, sculpture, and graphic design.
• Inven7ve Design for avant‐garde magazine
• Inspired by Cubism and El Lissitzky
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Pneuma@k Poster 1923
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Pneuma@k Poster 1923
• Poster for 7res
• Moholy‐Nagy’s passion for typography and photography inspired a Bauhaus interest in visual communica7ons and led to important experiments in the unificaBon of these two arts
• Moholy‐Nagy called this integra7on of word and image to communicate a message with immediacy “the new visual literature”
• Hand‐drawn lePerforms and photograph are integrated into an immediate and unified communicaBon
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy dust jacket for book 1930
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy dust jacket for book 1930
• The Bauhaus published a magazine and a series of fourteen books to spread their ideas about art theory and the applicaBon to architecture and design
• Maholy‐Nagy designed twelve of the books for the Bauhaus and eight of the dust jackets
• Volume #14 is devoted to modern
architecture, others focus on various mediums, including photography and film
• Photograph of typography printed
on glass with a shadow cast onto a red plane
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy, Chairs at Margate, photograph, 1935
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Chairs at Margate photograph, 1935
• Moholy‐Nagy used the camera as a tool for design
• Unconven7onal composi7ons and various viewpoints – worm’s eye, bird’s eye, extreme close‐up, and angled viewpoints
• Texture, dark and light interplay, and repe77on in Chairs at Margate
• In his growing enthusiasm for photography, he antagonized the Bauhaus painters by proclaiming the ulBmate victory of photography over painBng
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Photogram
1922
Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy Photogram 1922
• UnconvenBonal photogram technique of placing an object on light‐sensi7ve paper without a camera
• Moholy‐Nagy began to experiment with photograms in 1922
• He believed photograms represented the essence of photography (capturing light and dark)
• Objects that he used were chosen for their light‐modula7ng proper7es
• References to the outside world vanished in an expression of abstract paPern
Jan Tschichold, Btle page for his book, Die Neue Typographie, 1928
Jan Tschichold Btle page for his book, Die Neue Typographie 1928
• Tschichold was disgusted with “degenerate typefaces and arrangements” and sought to wipe the slate clean and find a new asymmetrical typography to express the spirit, life, and visual sensibility of the day
• His focus was to create func7onal design with the most straigheorward means
• Tschichold believed that the aim of every typographic work should be to deliver the message in the shortest, most efficient manner
• He emphasized the nature of machine composi7on and its impact on the design process and product
Jan Tschichold Poster for Film
Die Hose (The Pants) 1927
Jan Tschichold Poster for Film,
Die Hose (The Pants) 1927
• “A dynamic force should be present in each design and type should be set in mo7on rather than at rest”
• Tschichold favored headlines flush to the leG margin with uneven line lengths
• He believed that a kine7c asymmetrical design of contras7ng elements expressed the age of the machine
• He believed that type should be elementary in form without embellishments (sans serif) in a variety of weights (light, medium, bold, extra‐bold, italic)
• Tschichold’s designs set the new standard in books, adver7sements, and posters
The New Typography
In the 1920s there was a passion for new typography & many new sans‐serif typefaces were created.
Eric Gill Gill Sans type family 1928‐30
Eric Gill Gill Sans type family 1928‐30
• Eric Gill (1882 – 1940) was a complex and colorful figure who defies categorizaBon in the history of graphic design. His acBviBes include stonemasonry, inscrip7on carving for monuments, sculpture, wood engraving, typeface design, lePering, book design, and extensive wri7ng.
• Eric Gills was inspired by an earlier typeface, Railway Type used for the London Underground logo.
• The Gill Sans type family eventually included fourteen styles
• Its propor7ons stem from the roman tradi7on
Gill Sans typeface Penguin Books book cover (Layout design by Jan Tschichold)
Paul Renner Futura Typefaces
1927‐30
Paul Renner Futura Typefaces
1927‐30
• Futura was designed by Paul Renner (1878 – 1956), a teacher and designer who thought that each new genera7on should not merely preserve their inheritance, but should try to solve inherited problems and aPempt to create a contemporary form true to its own 7me
• Designed for the Bauer foundry in Germany, thus the typeface is machine‐based
• Futura had fiGeen alphabets, including four italics and two unusual display fonts
• Futura became the most widely used sans‐serif family
Piet Zwart Ad for NKF cableworks
1926
Piet Zwart Ad for NKF cableworks
1926
• Dutch designer Piet Zwart (1885 – 1977) influenced by The New Typography and modern movements, but had a very personal and original vision
• Adver7sement for Dutch Cable Manufactory
• Typography suggests the company’s product of cables
• Typical of Zwart’s composiBons which plays with contrast of scale and diagonal movement
Herbert Macer Swiss Tourism Poster
1935
Herbert Macer Swiss Tourism Poster
1935
Herbert Macer Swiss Tourism Poster
1935
• As the New Typography was concerned with machine produc7on, the camera was oGen used as a tool along with the type
• Herbert MaPer (1907 – 84) was a Swiss designer who studied in Paris and later moved to the US.
• Macer designed a series of posters for the Swiss Na7onal Tourist Office
• Like Moholy‐Nagy, his posters combine photography and typography
• Macer’s posters apply modern style
and techniques, including montage, dynamic scale changes, and an effec7ve integra7on of photography and illustra7on