The Bauhaus school had a profound influence on graphic design and typography in the early 20th century. It promoted an emphasis on clean, logical forms and the integration of art and machine production. Key figures like Herbert Bayer, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Jan Tschichold developed new typographic styles using sans-serif typefaces arranged asymmetrically for maximum clarity. Their work established principles of modern design that are still used today.

1. The Bauhaus
and the New Typography
Graphic Design History

2. “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

3. 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

4. Walter Gropius, Bauhaus building in Dessau, Germany (workshop), 1925‐26

5. 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

6. Lyonel Feininger
Cathedral
Woodcut
1919

7. • 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

8. 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.

9. First Bauhaus Seal
Johannes Auerbach
1919

10. 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

11. Later Bauhaus Seal
Oscar Schlemmer
1922

12. 1919 1922
Bauhaus quickly evolved from an interest in Medievalism, Expressionism,
and handicraG toward more emphasis on ra7onalism and designing for
the machine age

13. Johannes Icen
Page from Utopia:
Documents of Reality
1921

14. 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

15. Joost Schmidt
Bauhaus Exhibi@on Poster
1923

16. 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.

17. Herbert Bayer
universal alphabet
1925

18. 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

19. Herbert Bayer
Cover Design, Staatliches Bauhaus
in Weimar, 1921‐1923
1923

20. 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

21. Herbert Bayer, Exhibi@on Poster, 1926

22. 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

23. Herbert Bayer
Cover for Bauhaus Magazine
1928

24. 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

25. Herbert Bayer
Proposed Street Car
Sta@on and Newsstand
1924

26. 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

27. Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy
Proposed Title page for Broom
1923

28. 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

29. Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy
Pneuma@k Poster
1923

30. 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

31. Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy
dust jacket for book
1930

32. 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

33. Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy, Chairs at Margate, photograph, 1935

34. 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

35. Laszlo Moholy‐Nagy
Photogram
1922

36. 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

37. Jan Tschichold, Btle page for his book, Die Neue Typographie, 1928

38. 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

39. Jan Tschichold
Poster for Film
Die Hose (The Pants)
1927

40. 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

41. The New Typography

42. In the 1920s there was a passion for new typography
& many new sans‐serif typefaces were created.

43. Eric Gill
Gill Sans type family
1928‐30

44. 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

45. Gill Sans typeface
Penguin Books book cover
(Layout design by Jan
Tschichold)

46. Paul Renner
Futura Typefaces
1927‐30

47. 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

48. Piet Zwart
Ad for NKF cableworks
1926

49. 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

50. Herbert Macer
Swiss Tourism Poster
1935

51. Herbert Macer
Swiss Tourism Poster
1935

52. 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