Ellen Lupton - Type and The Bauhaus

Type and The Bauhaus

Ellen Lupton primarily bases her designs on typography. Of course in a very diverse world, there are many different typefaces that go unnoticed on an everyday basis. Lupton, however, bases type on a communicative level. Not only is lettering used to describe everyday things to us, or to help us communicate, but its also there to be a creative tool for writers, artists, illustrators, and graphic designers. Regardless of the type of design some texts may have, text is everywhere. It is a medium and a message to the senders and receivers.

In order to create new typefaces and new designs in regards to type, it is important to date back to when type became an organized framework. Lupton bases much of her creation of type on The Bauhaus design techniques. In the 1920s, the Bauhaus was opened to explore to as a universal, perceptually based on language of vision. As Lupton states in her book Graphic Design: the new basics the Bauhaus and other schools analyzed form in terms of basic geometric elements. Many designers, including Lupton herself, followed much of what the Bauhaus taught. Some the designers also got involved in the postmodern rejection of universal communication and interaction. Postmodernism late became a dominant ideology in the 1980s and 1990s. Regardless of what the Bauhaus says about the technical side of signing typography, it is truly the designers tasks to produce a work that the general art world could appreciate and understand. Lupton has proven this time and time again with her works on helping the public to understand how simple the design world can be; her D.I.Y book.