Herbert Bayer THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY TYPOGRAPHY PRESENTS THE WORK OF
Museum Of Contemporary Typography
herbert baye
Artistic polymath Herbert Bayer was one of the Bauhaus’s most influential students, teachers, and proponents, advocating the integration of all arts throughout his career. Bayer began his studies as an architect in 1919 in Darmstadt. From 1921 to 1923 he attended the Bauhaus in Weimar, studying mural painting with Vasily Kandinsky and typography, creating the Universal alphabet, a typeface consisting of only lowercase letters that would become the signature font of the Bauhaus. Bayer returned to the Bauhaus from 1925 to 1928 (moving in 1926 to Dessau, its second location), working as a teacher of advertising, design, and typography, integrating photographs into graphic compositions.
er e fac e typ rtook n a unde y to g i es dly raph - a d to xcite pog sal” r nly y ver e e t o y r t Ba aye ern “uni no r an d d B , e on and o mo was esign ed fo was i s t mis tions ach esult r’s d o ne nale t. m r co nica pro ye s n ratio you e a s h u a B p la u T i s op comm his a ce.” t. In re w of hi oard r e G n a 5, haus sed ypef rif fo lt th Part keyb 2 u t r fe r. e 19 au In all B . He alist ans-s , he lette write e k e y h for tas n “id tric s ssar eac typ r e s e thi te a eom nnece se fo d th n a cre ple g rifs u er ca ing a t sim e se d low eset r n we er a fy typ i p up impl s to
Museum Of Contemporary Typography
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In 1944 Bayer marri same year, he beca
In 1946 the Bayers to Aspen, Colorado the town included c his production of pr
In 1959, he designe and without capital well as the digraphs traditional orthograp
While living in Aspen ary ecologist, Rober that Bayer had desig was the beginning o passion for enthusia
Museum Of Contemporary Typography
With Anderson’s eve tion quickly overflow distinction of posses direction of Bayer as
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ied Joella Syrara Haweis, the daughter of poet and Dada artist Mina Loy. The ame a U.S. citizen.
relocated. Hired by industrialist and visionary Walter Paepcke, Bayer moved o as Paepcke promoted skiing as a popular sport. Bayer’s architectural work in co-designing the Aspen Institute and restoring the Wheeler Opera House, but romotional posters identified skiing with wit, excitement, and glamour.
ed his “fonetik alfabet”, a phonetic alphabet, for English. It was sans-serif letters. He had special symbols for the endings -ed, -ory, -ing, and -ion, as s “ch”, “sh”, and “ng”. An underline indicated the doubling of a consonant in phy.
n, Bayer had a chance meeting with the eccentric oilman, outdoorsman and visionrt O. Anderson. When Anderson saw the ultra-modern, Bauhaus-inspired home gned & built in Aspen, he walked up to the front door and introduced himself. It of a lifelong friendship between the two men and instigated Anderson’s insatiable astically collecting contemporary art.
entual formation of the Atlantic Richfield Company, and as his personal art collecwed out of his New Mexico ranch and other homes, ARCO soon held the unique ssing the world’s largest corporate art collection, under the critical eye and sharp s ARCO’s Art and Design Consultant.
A TYPOGRAPHICAL INTRODU Type is everywhere – street signs, magazines, the web. Every typeface you see around you has been painstakingly and carefully planned out, and each has its own personality and vibe. But have you ever stopped to wonder how the typefaces we encounter everyday came to be? Who invented them, and why? If you’re interested in learning more about typography, you’ve come to the right place.
Jenson 1470 1400 Guttenberg invented movable typefaces, giving the world a cheaper way to obtain the written word. Up until this point, all written materials were done by hand, and were very costly to purchase. Guttenburg also created the first typeface, blackletter – it was dark, fairly practical, and intense, but not very legible.
Nicolas Jenson created Roman Type, inspired by the text on ancient roman buildings. It was far more readable than blackletter, and caught on quickly.
a
1501
Italics begin to be used as way to fit more words onto a page, saving the printer money. Today, we use italics as a design detail or for emphasis when writing.
C
1734
William Caslon created a typeface which features straighter serifs and much more obvious contrasts between thin and bold strokes. Today, we call this type style ‘old style’.
B
1757 John Baskerville created what we now call Transitional type, a Roman-style type, with very sharp serifs and lots of drastic contrast between thick and thin lines.
D 1780
Firmin Di Giambatt created t ‘modern’ typefaces and Bodo contrasts extreme before, a a very co look.
Throug
UCTION
Present
Max 1957
A
1816
D
1815
idot and tista Bodoni the first ’ Roman s (Didot, oni). The s were more than ever and created ool, fresh
Vincent Figgins created Egyptian, or Slab Serif – the first time a typeface had serifs that were squares or boxes.
William Caslon IV created the first typeface without any serifs at all. It was widely rebuked at the time. This was the start of what we now consider Sans Serif typefaces. During this time, type exploded, and many, many variations were being created to accommodate advertising.
1920 Frederic Goudy became the world’s first full time type designer, developing numerous groundbreaking typefaces, such as Copperplate Gothic, Kennerly, and Goudy Old Style.
Swiss designer Max Miedinger created Helvetica, the most loved typeface of our time. This was a return to minimalism, and many other simplistic typefaces such as Futura surfaced around this time period.
Present: With the internet, we have such a vast variety of old and new typefaces available for us to peruse and use. All these typefaces give us an abundance of options and looks for our designs today, and we’re not limited by just one or two typefaces like we would have been a few hundred years ago.
TERMINOLOGY EXPLAINED
What’s the difference between a typeface and a font? Before you jump in, let’s clarify the terminology used. Typography is the art of creating the letters we use everyday. It’s designing them and creating them and making them real. A font is a collection or set of letters – they’re the mechanism you use to get your message across to your reader. Every letter and dash and semi colon would be considered part of a specific font. A typeface is the design you see – the style and look of a specific font.
ghout history, typefaces have been influenced by technological advances, culture shifts, and just general boredom with the state of typography.
Museum of Contemp
porary Typography The Museum of Contemporary Typography is a contemporary art museum founded by philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad on Grand Avenue in downtown Los Angeles. Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, the museum offers free general admission and presents an active program of rotating temporary exhibitions and innovative audience engagement. The Museum of Contemporary Typography is home to more than 2,000 works of art in the Museum of Contemporary Typography’s collection, which is one of the world’s most prominent collections of postwar and contemporary art. The 120,000-square-foot building features two floors of gallery space and is the headquarters of The Museum of Contemporary Typography Art Foundation’s worldwide lending library, which has been loaning collection works to museums around the world since 1984. Since opening in September 2015, The Museum of Contemporary Typography has welcomed more than 2.5 million visitors. Generous support is provided by Leading Partner East West Bank.
Museum Of Contemporary Typography
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Museum Of Contemporary Typography
21 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90012 w w w.th emuseumofmoderntype.org