Form/Function Typography Geometry Form/Function

The Three Rules
of the Bauhaus

The origins of the Bauhaus lie in the late 19th century, in anxieties about the soullessness of modern manufacturing, and fears about the art's loss of social relevance. The Bauhaus aimed to reunite fine art and functional design, creating practical objects with the soul of the art work.

Although the Bauhaus abandoned many aspects of traditional fine arts education, it was deeply concerened with intellectual and theoretical approach to its subject. Various aspects of artistic and pedagogy were fused, and the heirarchy of the arts which had stood in place during the Renaissance was leveled out: the practical crafts - archetecture and interior design, textiles and woodwork - were placed on a par with fine arts such as sculpting and painting.

Form Follows
Function

"Form Follows Function" is a sentence coined by louis Sullivan, an american architect, who wanted to express the futility in excessive ornamentations, and was central to thinking in the Bauhaus school. Indeed, the Bauhaus's final director, Mies van der Rohe pledged the school to "honesty of construction, death to decoration."

Proffesors strived to convey the idea that form had to reflect the function of the product. They thought that no message should be sacrificed in favor of the design choices. Differently artistic devices were to be used to increase the utility of the work. Living by this credo, the Bauhaus designer realized linear and geometrical works avoiding the use of floral or curvilinear (and useless) decorations.

Typography Matters

One of the most important classes at the Bauhaus was typography. Indeed, several teaches soon realized the essential role of types in a effective visual communication. The Bauhaus concentrated on simplified fonts and avoided much heavier renderings of the standard German typography of the time. Designers started wrapping text around objects, and also learned how to arrange type horizontally, vertically and even diagonally - which was not common at the time. They also refused to combine lower and upper case type in the same work and preferred the use of sans serif fonts.

The innovations introduced by the Bauhaus are still very effective today. In 2008, during his presidential campaign, Barrak Obama visited Berlin and his speech in the city was announced by a poster very similar to those of German school. Indeed you can see that is characterized by diagonal words and by an upper case font without serifs and by also how there's no pointless decoration and simple lines previal.

Geometry Rules

The Bauhaus showed a deep love of simple geometry - another quality that makes it a great fit for web design. Students were well acquainted with paintings of contemporary Cubist artists, such as Picasso and Gris, and so they adopted the similar way of looking at reality. They started breaking down objects into their rawest geometric shapes as they considered this technique the best way to create new, and more modern items. Clean, abstract and geometric forms were constantly used to produced new common tools that could highlight the difference from the old trends of the Art Nouveau.

In 1925, Marcel Breuer, a member of the Bauhaus school, designed a new model of chair, later called the "Wassily Chair". It is composed by some metal tubes and by leather bands which gives an idea of fluidity and flexibility. The designer was able to realize a minimial and fluid design that lasted in years and that is still loved today.