GEBRAUCHSGRAPHIK October 1938
Volume 15, Number 10

Herbert Bayer photomontage cover

Herbert Bayer contributed the highlight of this issue: a classic mixed-media cover. Bayer had been in America for several months (since August 28th, 1938) when this issue was published -- leaving this Gebrauchsgraphik cover as the last piece of his Design work published in Germany before the start of World War II. Bayerıs fine art efforts had already been labeled "Entartete Kunst"and prominently displayed in the 1937 Munich exhibition of the same name. Bayerıs graphic design work was spared a similar judgement.

9.25 x 12.25 vintage magazine with 64 pages of editorial content and around 20 pages of advertising trade ads. Editorial Contents represent the best of European Art Deco Commercial and Advertising Art, Posters, Photography and Packaging circa 1937. The advertising shows the strong Bauhaus influences of Moholy-Nagy and Herbert Bayer, as well as echoes of El Lissitzky, Piet Zwart and Jan Tschichold's neue typografie.

Contents:

• Gerhard Marggraff
• Fortnum and Mason, London: design work by Richard Taylor, Edward Bawden and Felix Topolski.
• Emmerich Weininger, Vienna, Film Posters
• Gustav Dore, A living Heritiage
• Studio Dorvyne, Paris
• Egon Pruggmayer
• Advertising in Bulgaria
• Edi Kallistaıs New Masks
• Picture Stories by H. A. Reyersbach, Rio de Janeiro

Gebrauchsgraphik utilized the latest printing and press technologies and often included custom colors, bound-in samples and advertising fold-outs, foil stamps, die-cuts and other special finishing effects.

Gebrauchsgraphik was the leading voice of the Avant-Garde influence on the European Commercial Art and Advertising industries before World War II. In the thirties, all roads led through Berlin, and Gebrauchsgraphik spotlighted all of the aesthetic trends fermenting in Europe -- Art Deco and Surrealism from Paris, Constructivism from Moscow, Futurist Fascism from Rome, De Stijl and Dutch typography from Amsterdam, and of course the spreading influence of the Dessau Bauhaus. A journal that was truly international in scope , all articles and cutlines are presented in both German and English.

The thirties were the Golden Age for European Poster Art and Gebrauchsgraphik was in the perfect place to showcase all the latest and greatest trends and rising artists for the rest of the world. Gebrauchsgraphik was an incredibly influential journal and agenda setter, most notably to a young man in Brooklyn named Paul Rand. According to his biographical notes, Rand's exposure to Gebrauchsgraphik in the early thirties created his desire to become a Commercial Artist. The rest is history.

Of all the artists to pass through the Bauhaus, none lived the Bauhaus ideal of total integration of the arts into life like Herbert Bayer (1900 - 1985). He was a graphic designer, typographer, photographer, painter, environmental designer, sculptor and exhibition designer. He entered the Bauhaus in 1921 and was greatly influenced by Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky. He left in 1923, but returned in 1925 to become a master in the school. During his tenure as a Bauhaus master he produced many designs that became standards of a Bauhaus "style." Bayer was instrumental in moving the Bauhaus to purely sans serif usage in all its work. In 1928 he left the Bauhaus to work in Berlin. He primarily worked as a designer and art director for the Dorland Agency, an international firm. During his years at Dorland a Bayer style was established. Bayer emigrated to the United States in 1938 and set up practice in New York. His US design included work for NW Ayers, consultant art director for J. Walter Thompson and design work for GE. From 1946 on he worked exclusively for Container Corporation of America (CCA) and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation. In 1946 he moved to Aspen to become design consultant to CCA. In 1956 he became chairman of the department of design, a position he held until 1965. He was awarded the AIGA medal in 1970. Bayer's late work included work for ARCO and many personal projects including several environmental designs.

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