poster 'universal alphabet'
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"Attempt of a new font" is the title of Herbert Bayer's text in 1926 in the Bauhaus issue of the magazine Offset. The article is illustrated on page 399 with his design for a new "alphabet."
"Just as modern machines, architecture, and cinema are expressions of our modern time, so must the font be," demands Bayer. Rigorous lowercase, simplicity, unity in construction, composition in the primary forms of square and circle - these are his demands. These guidelines shape many Bauhaus designs around the year 1926.
On the published sheet, two characters, g and k, are described as still unfinished. Bayer thus makes the design process visible.
Herbert Bayer's design is an idealization of simple construction and universal application. However, readability was neglected; the font is more suitable for logos and individual words, but not for longer texts.
The universal font was used by Herbert Bayer in the 1960s for the logo of the Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin that he designed, as was also adopted by the Bauhaus shop. In this, the "a" and "r" are further simplified, but the characters h, u, and s are taken from the then popular Helvetica font. For a more harmonious shape and better readability of the lettering, the inner angles of a and v are given indentations.
