Bauhaus Typeface

General
The Bauhaus movement was inspired by the idea of bringing artists and craftsmen together, and it was this idea that started a shift that would eventually change the world of art, as we know it. Started in 1919 by Walter Gropius, in the midst of two world wars and a time of change, no artistic institute that existed in Germany had a greater influence on the design of the 20th Century more than the Bauhaus. Staatliches Bauhaus meaning the construction house, and it was the formal name of the school that combined the arts and crafts movement that would become famous for the approach to design that it taught. One of the most essential components of the Bauhaus was the effective use of rational and geometric letterforms. Laszlo Moholy- Nagy and fellow typographer Josef Albers believed that to allow for effective communication, sans-serif typefaces, or those that do not have the small features called serifs at the end of strokes, were essential to the Bauhaus. These types of fonts are the only ones capable of expressing the spirit of the machine age that was flourishing at the time. They also were extremely different from the blackletter type that was associated with the nationalist movement, serving to unify after the post war era. The best example of a typeface that adhered to these rules is the type designed by Josef Albers himself. Each letter is built out of a set of simple geometric forms, intended to remove any other artistic elements like expressionism from the forms. Stencil is an unusual element of the Bauhaus movement because of its obvious flaw of legibility and difficulty reading. Of all typefaces to come out of the Bauhaus movement was the Universal type was the most famous. Designed by former student Herbert Bayer, his work on the typeface began in 1923 and he continued working and revising it throughout the years. Universal differs slightly from the Stencil typeface designed by Albers in that its geometric forms are made of strokes with uniform thicknesses, which rids the type of the calligraphic element of most types of that time. He designed this type to be used in print, as opposed to chisel or pen, and also featured the key shapes of the Bauhaus.

The Bauhaus began many of the things that we now take for granted in our daily lives, including legibility and ease of reading in the typefaces that we see on a daily basis. The German Bauhaus was only open for 14 years, but has influenced the design world for over 91 years by bringing our daily lives ever closer to the world of design.

Bauhaus 93
It is a variant of URW Blippo Black. Only 1 font was produced. It is used in Microsoft Word. It is also used for the new Postman Pat logo.