Essay Plan

Title

Bauhaus typography and the development of the Grid System 

Introduction

The introduction will aim to introduce what typography is about. It will also target to discuss the importance of typography communication and what it aims to. The introduction will also cover a brief overview of typography in the 20^th century including Bauhaus typography and the Grid system and their development throughout centuries, reaching through what we are in now.

Main Body 1 - Typography at the Bauhaus:

This part of the essay will aim to discuss the conceptual and historical values of typography throughout the School of Bauhaus. It will also evaluate the influence that such typography has on our world today. This part of the essay will be divided as follows:

1) Introduction of what the school of Bauhaus is including its historical background, what are its origins and how the big idea of such a school came along.

2) Big contributors of typography- Johannes Itten: His contribution to the Bauhaus through teaching the preliminary course will be noted along with examples of some of his work.

3) Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Areas that Laszlo had the most stimulus in, his use of types, his experiments influenced from other teachers along with some of his famous quotations will be explored.    

4) Herbert Bayer: The major changes that occurred in the same year that he joined the Bauhaus School, features of Bayer’s typography and examples of his work will be reviewed.

5) Discussion of the development of 3D type within the Bauhaus School featuring most famous works done by a group of typographers and the influence of such works on today’s works with examples to be shown. 

  

Main Body 2 - The Grid System:

The second part f the essay will discuss and evaluate the emergence of the grid system and its effects and uses through out history. This part will be divided as follows:

1) Historical overview of the grid system with a brief definition of what a grid is and how it’s used.

2) Discussion of the works done by typographers using the grid system since the 1920’s. The works of Max Bill, Emil Ruder and Josef Muller-Brockmann will be analysed.

3) Overview of the concerns Ruder had when designing a typographic poster including leadings, spacing and line lengths.

4) The emergence of the International Typographic style in Switzerland and its use of the gird system and sans serif types will be analysed. Also, discussion of the key figures such as Ernst Keller, Theo Ballmer and Max Bill will be stated.  

5) The inspiration of historical works on today’s graphic design works will be appraised including works of typographers using the grid system around the globe. 

6) Finally, the use of the grid system from the 20^th century will be compared with today’s work.

Bibliography:

Books:

1) Gottshall, E., 1989 – Typographic Communication Today. Ney York: International Typeface Corporation

2) Elam, K., 1990 – Expressive Typography. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold

Websites:

1) Agrayspace (2004) - Researching Josef Müller-Brockmann. Available at: http://www.agrayspace.com/ncsu/04_fall/img/Brockmann.pdf

[Accessed: 12^th February 2011]

2) Anneserdesign (n.d.) – History of Graphic Design, Bauhaus. Available at:

http://anneserdesign.com/Bauhaus.html

[Accessed: 10^th February 2011]

3) Swisstype (2009) – International Typographic Style. Available at:

http://swisstype.wordpress.com/

[Accessed: 12^th February 2011]