Learning in the Bauhaus School: five lessons for today’s designers (and five ways the web still is Bauhaus)

This is an excellent article on the history of the Bauhaus School from blog.prototypr.io and the movement that it started with artists and designers in the early twentieth century. I have always advocated that Form Follows Function, a chair needs to be able to have someone sit in it before it can be a pretty chair! The teachers and students tried to get away from the flowery and ornamental design of the early 1900’s and back to the basics. They were looking for simple, rational and functional solutions to all manners of design problems. In the last few years as the web has become inundated with flashy and often times ornamental design, but recently there has been a resurgence of the Bauhaus mentality. Some of the obvious influences include: 1. Economy and hierarchy 2. Color as meaning 3. Rational, legible typography 4. The Grid 5. Websites that respond to the user’s needs. As designers we need to educate and understand how, where and why we are applying this to our current designs. Sometimes the old is new again.