Marcel Breuer
Wassily Chair, 1925
First tubular-steel chair ever built, inspired by his bicycle handlebars.
- Culture
- Branding
- Graphics
Das ist Bauhaus
Visual identity for a lecture series marking 100 years of Bauhaus by putting its creators back in the spotlight.
Overview
“Das ist Bauhaus” is a lecture series marking 100 years since the movement began. It is built around a simple idea: Bauhaus wasn’t just a style. It was made by specific people whose names rarely make it past the footnotes.
For 100 years, Bauhaus has been shown through its objects. This is what happens when you show it through its people instead.
Challenge
My challenge was simple to say and hard to do: give five completely different designers equal weight, each with their own object and story, without the series falling apart into five unrelated posters.
One system, five voices
Portrait, object, one line: a quick introduction to who they were and what they made, before the posters show them together.
Marianne Brandt
Teapot, 1924
Ran the Bauhaus metal workshop when almost no women were allowed to.
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Architecture
“Less is more”: the line he spent his career proving in steel and glass.
Josef Hartwig
Bauhaus Chess, 1923
A chess set where each piece’s shape shows how it’s allowed to move.
Johannes Itten
Color Theory, 1920s
Wrote the book on how colors interact, before Bauhaus had a house style.
1/5
Posters
One system, five voices. The structural rigor holds the series together even as each figure gets their own color story: five individual designers, plus one closing poster bringing all 100 years together, held to the same grid discipline throughout.
Applications
The posters are only the start. The same grid and color system carries onto totes, lanyards, stickers and street posters, plus a landing page for the lecture series. The identity works wherever the audience meets it.
Approach
Instead of just styling around Bauhaus, the design was built around its people. It carries onto totes, stickers, and the small everyday objects that outlast a single lecture series.
