poster: universal alphabet by herbert bayer
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"Attempt at a new typeface" is the title of Herbert Bayer's text in the 1926 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 times, so must writing be," demands Bayer. Rigorous lowercase, simplicity, unity in construction, composition in the primary forms of square and circle - these are his demands. These specifications characterize many Bauhaus designs around 1926.
On the published sheet, two characters, the g and the 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, legibility 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 he designed for the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, which was also adopted by the Bauhaus Shop. "A" and "R" were simplified again, but the characters H, U and S were taken from the then popular Helvetica font. The inner corners of A and V were indented to give the lettering a more harmonious shape and make it easier to read.
