@36daysoftype - B
Today there was only really going to be one typographic movement that could relate to the letter B. I started off thinking 100% I'd be entering a B for Bauhaus and in a way I did but after further research, it jumped out at me that Herbert Bayer could be a more interesting and specific B to express. Bauhaus felt a little vague and obvious but I had some recognition of Herbert Bayers attempts to create a universal alphabet that was a simplified and purer version of our Latin character set.
Universal style strove to be a puritan form of not only typography but an entirely new alphabet. The inclusion of an uppercase was deemed unnecessary, in part due to the time they wasted in the production and use of typewriters. As a remedy for this, where strictly necessary Bayer proposed that an underline could easily be applied to any lowercase letter to transform it into a capital. Serfs were of course also dropped by the entire Bauhaus movement in the pursuit of something as crisp as international style within architecture.
With this brief research in mind, I decided to get sketching in an attempt to find a style that sits between the Bauhaus minimalist puritanism and my more expressive craft from a modern perspective. I wanted to contrast and offset the pure lowercase b with attached calligraphic underlining to make it uppercase and therefore the letterform I was submitting. I think this theoretical angle gave an extra dimension to the submissions and takes it beyond the rudimentary B.
The final square was of course modelled on Bayers original specimen for sturm blonde seen above which features a subtle offwhite background and red highlighted red letterform with peripheral black letterforms surrounded by red squares.
Universal style strove to be a puritan form of not only typography but an entirely new alphabet. The inclusion of an uppercase was deemed unnecessary, in part due to the time they wasted in the production and use of typewriters. As a remedy for this, where strictly necessary Bayer proposed that an underline could easily be applied to any lowercase letter to transform it into a capital. Serfs were of course also dropped by the entire Bauhaus movement in the pursuit of something as crisp as international style within architecture.
With this brief research in mind, I decided to get sketching in an attempt to find a style that sits between the Bauhaus minimalist puritanism and my more expressive craft from a modern perspective. I wanted to contrast and offset the pure lowercase b with attached calligraphic underlining to make it uppercase and therefore the letterform I was submitting. I think this theoretical angle gave an extra dimension to the submissions and takes it beyond the rudimentary B.
"B is for Bayer - a reimagining of Herbert Bayers 1959 Fonetik Alfabet, an attempt to simplify the Latin alphabet using only lowercase characters that could be made capital with an underlining.
A collision of decorative typography and the purity of Bauhaus forms and ideas."
A collision of decorative typography and the purity of Bauhaus forms and ideas."
Comments
Post a Comment