Bauhaus Graphic Design vs Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design

Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design was influenced by Bauhaus Graphic Design — Americanized the Bauhaus programme via its emigrating teachers.

Joost Schmidt — Bauhaus Exhibition poster, Weimar (1923)

Bauhaus Graphic Design

The functional, geometric graphic language forged at the Bauhaus — lowercase sans-serif type, asymmetric layouts, primary colors, and the marriage of typography with photography into a rational visual system.

Geometric sans-serif type, often lowercase only
Asymmetric layouts on a horizontal-vertical structure
Integration of typography with photography (typophoto)
Primary colors with black, white, and bold rules
Functional, grid-organized white space

Full Bauhaus Graphic Design guide →

Original specimen in the mid-century modern / corporate-modern style

Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design

Postwar American graphic design that married European modernist rigor with Madison Avenue optimism, building the visual language of the corporate logo, the trademark, and the witty conceptual poster.

Reductive conceptual logos built around a single idea
Hand-cut paper collage and torn-edge shapes
Flat unmodeled color blocks with generous white space
Bold sans-serif type set with dramatic scale contrast
Geometric simplification of imagery into clean silhouettes

Full Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design guide →

At a glance

	Bauhaus Graphic Design	Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design
Era	1919–1933	c. 1945–1970
Discipline	Graphic Design	Graphic Design
Region	Germany	United States
Family	Modernism, Bauhaus	Corporate Modern, Modernist
Formal traits	asymmetric, sans-serif, geometric, grid-based	flat-color, geometric, sans-serif, negative-space