Herbert Bayer: designer of the Bauhaus' universal typography
Herbert Bayer created the Bauhaus' typographic identity. As we continue our Bauhaus 100 series celebrating the school's centenary, we explore how the Austrian designer's lettering became synonymous with the school.
True to form, perhaps the most mythic typeface to come out of the Bauhaus, Universal, was one that strove to be as idealistic as the school itself. The inclusion of an upper case was deemed unnecessary ? it being, among other things, a waste of time in both the production and use of typewriters. Serifs too were abandoned in pursuit of something as crisp as architecture's International Style.Â
The creator of this type and many others was the prolific Herbert Bayer, not only a typographer but what MoMA has called an "artistic polymath". Bayer was a huge proponent of the Bauhaus ? drawn in by Walter Gropius' original manifesto and Wassily Kandinsky's writings ? who would later go on to not only study but also teach at the school.
Herbert Bayer created a typographical identity for the Bauhaus. Image is by Tadashi Okochi
Born in 1900, Bayer began working for industrial-design studios specialising in architecture in 1919. He was first an apprentice in the office of Georg Schmidthammer in Linz, Austria, then after moving to Germany, for Arts and Crafts designer and architect Emanuel Josef Margold.
Margold was a member of the Darmstadt Artists' Colony, founded by Ernest Ludwig in 1899 as a means of strengthening connections between art and trade; similari...
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