Typefaces like the ones used by the Bauhaus. So, what typefaces should we choose to be more imaginative?
The typeface ITC Bauhaus is a design from 1975 by Ed Benguiat and Victor Caruso inspired by the ideas of Bayer, Schmidt et al, but it is not a revival of any Bauhaus design. Then, however, it was accepted as the “type of our time”. Paul Renner’s Futura was clearly inspired by the concepts of the Bauhaus (see experimental letters) but came out no earlier than 1927. The radical constructivist designs we now immediately connect with “Bauhaus”, however, were only carried out in drafts - drawings and lettering - never in a typeface. Others are Venus and Ideal Grotesk, later recycled in Monotype Grotesque.īut the typographic ideas of the Bauhaus, above all Herbert Bayer and Joost Schmidt, went further. This drawing by Herbert Bayer wasn’t produced as a typeface.Ī typeface in this vein often found in their later materials is Breite halbfette Grotesk by Schelter & Giesecke, recently revived as FF Bau by Christian Schwartz.
