Architype Albers is a modular stencil

sans-serif In typography and lettering, a sans-serif, sans serif, gothic, or simply sans letterform is one that does not have extending features called "serifs" at the end of strokes. Sans-serif typefaces tend to have less stroke width variation than seri ...

typeface A typeface (or font family) is the design of lettering that can include variations in size, weight (e.g. bold), slope (e.g. italic), width (e.g. condensed), and so on. Each of these variations of the typeface is a font. There are list of type ...

based upon a series of experiments between 1926 and 1931 by

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College, ...

(1888–1976), German designer, educator and typographer. The Architype Albers typeface is one of a collection of several revivals of early twentieth century typographic experimentation designed by Freda Sack and David Quay of The Foundry. Albers studied art in Berlin,

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

, and

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

before enrolling as a student at the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

in 1920. He began teaching in the preliminary course of the Department of Design in 1922, and was promoted to professor in 1925, the year the Bauhaus moved to

Dessau Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau ...

. He taught there until the school was closed by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

in 1933. Albers designed a series of stencil faces while teaching at the Dessau Bauhaus. The typeface is based on a limited palette of geometric forms combined in a size ratio of 1:3. Drawn on a grid, the elements of square, triangle, and circle combine to form letters with an economy of form. Never intended for text, the face was designed for use on posters and in large-scale signs.

References

*Blackwell, Lewis. ''20th Century Type''.

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

: 2004. . *Fleischmann, Gerd. ''Bauhaus Typographie''. Oktagon Stuttgart: 1995. . *Haley, Allen. ''Type: Hot Designers Make Cool Fonts''. Rockport Publishers Inc, Gloucester; 1998. {{ISBN, 1-56496-317-9

External links

Architype 2 typesthe Josef and Anni Albers Foundation website
Geometric sans-serif typefaces

See also

References

External links