REVOLUTION

THE

ISSUE

THE BAUHAUS

The First Modrn Art School

THEO VAN DOESBURG

The Bad Boy of De Stijl

LAZSLO MOHOLY-NAGY

The New Vision

HERBERT BAYER

Jack of All Trades

CONTENTS

JAN TSCHICHOLD

Typographic Master of The 20th

Century

PIET ZWART

Pioneer of Modern

Typography

DESIGNS TODAY

CREDITS

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THEBAUHAUS

The FirstModern Art

School

The Bauhaus was a school whose approach to design and the com-bination of fine art and arts and crafts proved to be a major influ-ence on the development of graphic design as well as much of 20th century modern art. Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany in 1919, the school moved to Dessau in 1924 and then was forced to close its doors, under pressure from the Nazi political party, in 1933. The school favored simplified forms, rationality, functionality and the idea that mass production could live in harmony with the artistic spirit of individuality.

Along with Gropius, and many other artists and teachers, both Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Herbert

Bayer made significant contribu-tions to the development of graphic design. Among its many contributions to the development of design, the Bauhaus taught typography as part of its curricu-lum and was instrumental in the development of sans-serif typog-raphy, which they favored for its simplified geometric forms and as an alternative to the heavily ornate German standard of blackletter typography.

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Top Left: A very famous poster by Joost Schmidt for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition.

Right: Bauhaus 1919-1928 by Herbert Bayer is one of the most influencial books on Modern Design ever published. This book occupies three dimensional space as represented by the X, Y, and Z axis.

Bottom Left: A recent photograph taken of the Bauhaus Dessau.

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Highly influenced by Wassily Kan-dinsky, Van Doesburg shifted his style of painting from one that emphasized less of a direct reflec-tion of everyday life and one that placed more importance on a conceptual style that favored a simplistic geometric style. A Dutch artist, Van Doesburg led the artis-tic style movement “De Stijl” into popularity and influenced graphic designers for many years to come with his theories. His theories con-veyed the idea that there was a collective experience of reality that could be tapped as a medium of communication.

Van Doesburg moved to Weimar, Germany in hopes of impressing the directer of the Bauhaus, Walter Gropius. Gropius did not directly oppose his ideas, but did not accept him onto the faculty of the Bauhaus. In reaction to this, Van Doesburg positioned his studio

directly next to the Bahaus and attracted many students with the ideas he promoted, most of which were developed out of the ideas of Constructivism, Dadaism and De Stijl.

It was during these times that Van Doesburg formed a tight bond with the artist Piet Mondrian. And, in 1923, Van Doesburg moved to Paris so that he could communicate directly with Mondrian. However, the two were very much polar opposites in character and it resulted in the dissolution of their friendship. It has been speculated that the breakdown came as a result of a disagreement about the directions of lines in their paintings. Van Doesburg moved to Switzer-land in 1931, due to his declining health, and it was there that he died, on March 7th.

THEO VAN

DOESBURGThe Bad Boy

of De Stijl

Top Left: After splitting with Piet Mondrian, Van Doesburg created a new concept for his art known as “Elementarism” which was characterized by diagonal lines and can be seen in his Counter-Composition XVI in dissonances.

Bottom Left: Studies and the final version of Van Doesburg’s 1918 piece Composition VIII (The Cow) illustrates the painstaking process of abstraction that Van Doesburg underwent when creating his works.

Right: Van Doesburg designed a typeface where each character was based upon a square divided into 25 smaller squares, developed long before the Macintosh computer and pixel-based fonts. It has been revived as Architype Van Doesburg.

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Known for his versatility and the fundamentals of design which he taught his students, Laszlo replaced Johannes Itten as director of the Bauhaus in 1923. He experimented in many different fields including photography, typography, sculp-ture, painting, industrial design and printmaking. His experimentation across multiple mediums led to graphic design work characterized by bold typography in combina-tion with striking photography.

After he resigned from his position at the Bauhaus in 1928 he spent time working in Berlin as a film and stage designer. In 1937 he moved

to Chicago and formed the New Bauhaus, which is now the Illinois Institute of Technology. The school shared the same philosophy as the original Bauhaus and caught on quickly. He chronicled his efforts to establish the curriculum of the school in his book Vision in Motion.

LASZLOMOHOLY

NAGYThe New

Vision

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Top Right: Space Modulator Experiment, Aluminum 5. This piece is an example of Moholy-Nagy experimenting with 3

Right: This cover for a publication is an example of Moholy-Nagy’s integration of photography and modern, sans serif typography.

Following Spread: Another photogram created that combines unusual 3 dimensional objects that have been over exposed.

Top Left: This is an example of Moholy-Nagy’s extensive use of photograms, which are a mix of everyday objects that have been over exposed. It is an experimental form of photography.

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Bayer was both a student and a teacher at the Bauhaus and worked in a wide range of fields including painting, sculpture, typography, advertising and architecture. In his early years as a student he studied painting with Kandinsky, but in just a short while he was teaching one of the Bauhaus’ first classes on typography. The amount of work that he created before he was 28 was more notable than most designers entire careers of work. He spent time teaching at the Bauhaus, working as an Art Director for the Container Corporation and as an architect in both Germany and America.

In between his time at the Bauhaus and his career in America he spent time as the Art Director of Vogue magazine’s Berlin office. His contri-butions to the fields of graphic design, typography and advertising

were many. One that should be noted was his design for a type-face that consisted of entirely low-ercase letters. The German black-letter types were overly ornate for his taste and their use of capital letter for every proper noun was annoying. Logically, Bayer devel-oped a sans-serif alphabet of low-ercase letters titled “Universal”.

In 1946 Bayer moved to Aspen, Col-orado where he spent much of his time designing local architecture and posters for the local commu-nity. In 1959 he designed another sans-serif typeface. Again it was all in lower case, but he called it “fonetik alfabet” and it contained special characters for the endings -ed, -ion, -ory and -ing. He is one of the most recognized designers to come from the Bauhaus institution and his theories of design are still taught in many schools today.

HERBERTBAYER

The Jack of All Trades

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Bottom Right: Design for “Room 5” for an exhibit in Paris. Bayer also designed architectural space. He set up the art exhibit to bring the art to the viewer at the angle of their vision.

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Above: Prospectus for Dessau. This piece is made by letterpress printing. Bayer uses large blocks of color and black and white photos.

Page Right: “Bauhaus” cover. This is one of the most famous pieces by Bayer, a photomontage.

Top Right: Universal. Bayer not only designs posters and signs, but he designed “Universal”, a typeface for Bauhaus.

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Right: Bank notes issued by the state bank of Thuringia. Bayer here used blocks of color and typography aligned on vertical and horizontal axes.

Above: Regina. Bayer designed this as a booth for a fictional toothpaste. The booth was supposed to lure you in with the sound of her voice.

Next Page: Poster for Exhibition of European Decorative Arts. Bayer uses only text and bold blocks of color to create this lithograph.

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Tschichold claimed that he was typography. There are few who would attempt to deny that state-ment. The son of a sign Tschichold began working with typography at a very early age. Raised in Germany, he worked closely with Paul Renner (who designed Futura) and fled to Switzerland during the rise of the Nazi party. His emphasis on new typefaces was deemed a threat to the cultural heritage of Germany, Typography and the Nazis seized much of his work before he was able to flee the country.

When Tschichold wrote Die Neue Typographie he set forth rules for relating to modern type usage. He condemned all typefaces except for sans-serif types, advocated standardized sizes for establishing

a typographic hierarchy when using type in design. While the text still has many relative uses today, Tschichold eventually returned to a classicist theory in which cen-tered designs and roman type-faces were favored for blocks of copy.

He spent part of his career with Penguin Books and while he was there he developed a standard-ized practice for creating the covers for all of the books pro-duced by Penguin. He personally oversaw the development of more than 500 books between the years 1947-49. Every period of his career has left a lasting impression on how designers think about and use typography, and it will continue to affect them into the future.

JANTSCHICHOLD

Typographic Genius of the 20th Century

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Top Right: Sabon was one of Tschichold’s completed typefaces.It has been revived as Sabon Next by Jean Francois Porchez for Lino-type.

Top Left: Tschichold created a standardized practice for Penguin Book covers.

Right: A poster designed by Tschichold in 1927 using asymmetrical layouts anddiagonal lines.

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A pioneer of modern typography, designer Piet Zwart was influenced by Constructivism and De Stijl. His influence shows in his work and in this quote: “...to make beautiful cre-ations for the sake of their aesthetic value will have no social signifi-cance tomorrow...”. Zwart worked as a designer, typographer, pho-tographer and industrial designer in the Netherlands in the 1920s and 30s. Primarily working for the NKF Company, he created many works of graphic design before retiring from the company to spend the rest of his days as an interior and furni-ture designer.

Also influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, Zwart began his education at the School of Applied Arts in 1902. He spent most of his

career moonlighting as an architect and photographer, as well as a designer and for several years he was very successful. His design career came to a halt when he was arrested by German soldiers in 1942. He was eventually released after the war, but the experience affected him drastically. He spent the rest of his life primarily working in interior design. His excellent use of color, typography, composition and photography are reminiscent of the Bauhaus and his influence on the future generations of graphic designers lives on through the Piet Zwart Institute at the William de Kooning Academy.

PIET ZWART

Pioneer of Modern

Typography

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Right: This book cover for Amerikaansche Filmkunst, a book series on American Film, shows Zwart’s expert use of photomontage, typography, and primary colors.

Top Left: This cover for the NFK Company’s Annual displays Zwart’s integration of sans serif, typography, and primary colors. Zwart referred to himself as a hybrid between a typographer and an architect.

Bottom Left: This spread Zwart created for the NFK company is an excellent example of how Zwart incorporates photomon-tage, primary colors, and geometric shapes.

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Bauhaus by Curseofthemoon Curseofthemoon uses diagonal lines, text on various alignments, and a typeface very similar to Bauhaus design.

Memnoch the Devil by Angelina ZavilevichZavilevich uses multiple alignments for her type and sets paragraphs on angles. Shealso uses large blocks of diagonal colors in the background.

BAUHAUSInspired Designs

of Today

Women of Color Game Nights by Tyler V. Shaqiri The designer of this poster uses the circular shape used commonly in Bauhaus design with diagonal text jutting out from the shape.

AG Ideas Poster by Matthew D. JonesJones uses black and orange, diagonal axes, and a circular element that other elements are jutting out of. The text is aligned on multiple axes also.

Deutschland Stamp by AnonymousThis designer uses bold blocks of color, type on a vertical axis and horizontal axis, and type that is inspired by Bauhaus typographers.

El Lissitzky Poster by Charles RezandiRezandni uses a circular element that other elements are interacting with. He also uses a diagonal axis that the text lines up on in various directions. He uses red, black, and tan to reference the colors of Bauhaus design.

Bauhaus (4-7)

Theo Van Doesburg (8-11)

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (12-17)

Herbert Bayer (18-25)

Jan Tschichold (26-29)

Piet Zwart (30-33)

Designs of Today (34-35)

Designed by Paige MorseReferences:WikipediaThe Bauhaus ArchiveThe Bauhaus Dessau FoundationBauhaus Images on FlickR

Designed by Heather McIlrathReferences:MoMAIcon of GraphicsExplore Van Doesburg at The Tate ModernTheo van Doesburg: The Splintered Self at The Guardian

Designed by James DortchReferences:The Moholy-Nagy FoundationThe Illinois Institute of TechnologyThe Fiery Stimulator at The GuardianThe Struggle for Utopia at Amazon

Designed by Jenni ElledgeReferences: RIT Design ArchiveWikipediaBiography at the Art Directors Club

Designed by Paige MorseReferences:Linotype FeatureTschichold Fonts at MyFontsA Titan of Typography at The Guardian

Designed by Heather McIlrathReferences:Icon of GraphicsThe Piet Zwart InstituteThe Piet Zwart Collection at Design Observer

Designed by Jenni Elledge

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