Bauhaus

It’s foundations lie in the early 20^th century art movements, like the Arts and Crafts movement, whose aim was to unite creativity and manufacturing, and also to re-establish the fine line between fine arts and applied arts. It started out out as a sort of romantic crafts guild, but then started stressing on uniting art and industrial design.  It was this trait that proved to be the school’s most important and significant achievement. The school was also known for having the top class artists of the time teaching there, some of which were Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Moholy-Nagy, Walter Gropius and Mies Van der Rohe.

During the late 19^th century creativity and manufacturing were drifting apart, and architect Walter Gropius founded the school to start uniting them once more.  Bauhaus emphasized on intellectual and theoretical pursuits, and helped young artists link these pursuits to artistic crafts and techniques. This emphasis revolutionized the way art education was carried about, and it also led to the fine arts becoming more into the visual arts, and also the idea that art is not like literature, but it is something which is an expression of character.

Characteristics of the Bauhaus influences in Graphic Design include order and symmetry in their layouts and design. They also used a lot of geometrical, functional and modern forms, in contract to the organic forms in the earlier movements. They started using rectangular grid structures, and used geometric shaped to divide and separate graphic elements on the page. Horizontals and Vertical lines were very dominant on the page.

There was also an inclusion of different typefaces and type sizes to create an amphasis by the contrast created. There were also no serif typefaces in this movement, to keep the layout as clean as possible. The type and pictures were also sized to the same column width, again sticking to the rectangular grid structure. They used a method of colour similar to the constructivists, black, white and a single strong hue.

Moholy Nagy introduced also a vast knowledge of constructivism, and a passion for photography and photomontage, to create the so-called typophotos. Nagy describes them as such;

                 

                             "What is typophoto? Typography is communication composed in type. Photography is the visual presentation of what can be optically apprehended. Typophoto is the visually most exact rendering of communication."

links: 
http://monoskop.org/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Moholy-Nagy
http://www.iconofgraphics.com/laszlo-moholy-nagy/
http://bauhaus-bauhauss.blogspot.com/2009/09/bauhaus-characteristics-in-graphic.html
http://www.archdaily.com/tag/walter-gropius/
http://www.theartstory.org/movement-bauhaus.htm