Virtual Typography

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1.5

Job:01212 Title: Basics typography (AVA)

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Bauhaus and De Stijl

From visual poetry to modern typography: 1.5 Bauhaus and De Stijl

1.4 Constructivism 1.6 Concrete poetry

Bauhaus – Anton Stankowski

Stankowski can be seen as a late modernist designer. He

was born in 1906 in Germany, where he lived and worked

until 1998. Despite the fact that he had no direct links with

Bauhaus or De Stijl, Stankowski was much inspired by

Mondrian’s painting as well as by van Doesburg’s work.

Along with works of concrete art, Stankowski designed

information materials and corporate identities, including

the famously simple trademark for Deutsche Bank from

1974. The German publisher Taschen Verlag commissioned
      Stankowski to design the book jacket for Magdalena Droste’s
      book on Bauhaus. No design solution could possibly refl ect
      the Bauhaus ethos more appropriately than Stankowski’s.
      The cover illustrates the Bauhaus preference for sans serif
      fonts and lower case writing. The rectangular pattern in
      primary colours shapes a lower case b.

Modernist functionalism

The second generation of modernists (those who

practised visual design after the Second World War)

understood functionalism in the conventional, pragmatic

sense. The purpose behind typography was to deliver

information quickly, i.e. effi ciently. The aspect of aesthetic

pleasure was considered to be secondary. The potential

of visually challenging design solutions was limited,

as they were often declared as artistic. The emphasis

on visual clarity and communicative effi ciency led to

the rejection of emotive expression. This stands in

contradiction to some of the early modernist movements,

including Dadaism and Futurism. The question you

should keep asking yourself when reading this book is

in what way the emotive characteristics of typographic

work affect the way typographic information is perceived

by the information recipient.

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