Brought to you by the letter...

Brought to you by the letter: B
Bauhaus 93, lowercase, regular b

Bauhaus is ones of those typefaces every designer needs to know. I'd even go so far that it's a typeface that everyone should know, but that's a very special classification mainly left to Helvetica, Arial, Times New Roman and Comic Sans, but I digress.

Personally, I don't think Bauhaus is all that pretty or useable. It's round and approachable without being childish. It's a little quirky the way the shape never really connects to itself. It feels simple but it's not. And when used in a certain way, Bauhaus can even feel distinguished. But like my earlier post on the typeface Broadway, Bauhaus is much more than a distinct visual face. Mainly because the typeface is held in esteem as a representation of a larger art movement of the same name.

Bauhaus comes from the German school of Staatliches Bauhaus which combined arts and crafts and fine arts in the early 20th century. The main theme of the school was to include all types of art in one roof (design, architecture, textiles, decor etc.). As a result, the Bauhaus became a movement as thinkers and makers from this time and school proceeded to go and influence many different art disciplines. Modernism played a large part in the Bauhaus school of thought, and I definitely think that's reflected in the Bauhaus typeface.

Courtesy of Wikiepedia.com:

I'll skip the regular breakdown of foundry, designer etc. And just give you a timeline instead since it's a bit confusing. In 1925, Herbert Bayer created Universal. Bauhaus is based off of that. There's also Burko Bold which is an unfinished Bauhaus design. Blippo was created in 1969 for Fotostar by Joe Taylor as a black weight to Burko Bold. Bauhaus 93 is a variant of URW Blippo Black. ITC Ronda gave lowercase letters to the family. ITC Bauhaus was finally created in 1975 by Edward Benguiat and Victor Caruso. Not going to lie - none of this is particularly clear to me - or at least the differences among each of these is not clear. But in a nutshell, Bauhaus in some form or another, has been around since the 1920s.

More interesting! Bauhaus was the typeface used for The Jeffersons and Roseanne title sequences. It was also used in Walt Disney World signage. And more recently, it's used sometimes in Homestar Runner titles. Whoa!