German Posters from the Twenties

 The poster below is a famous image demonstrating the intention of modern designers in Germany in the late 1920's to leave behind stuffy turn of the century interior and home design and move toward modern design of the future.  The poster was done by Willi Baumeister in 1927 for an exhibition organized at the Weissenhofsiedlung in Stuttgart, Germany.  The typography asks 'How to live (at home)?'

Campaign poster for the German Communist Party.  John Heartfield/Helmut Herzfeld.  The Hand Has Five Fingers.  1928. 

Poster for municipal pools, Augsburg Germany, 1928.  Werner David Feist.

"Soon after designing this poster, Feist was banned from those same pools because he was Jewish."  Ironically, the photo is of Feist himself.

Max Burchartz, German, Untitled (red square), c. 1928.

"An Expert in Publicity, Max Burchartz

  Max Burchartz argued that an advertisement should be clear in its message, modern in its means, and economical in its form.  Exemplifying this approach, the photomontage combines three distinct elements:  photographic reproductions of industrial parts; a red square, indicating his own Constructivist leanings; and Burcharts's own logo, a lowercase b with an inset square.  The three upper tubes are cannons; the bottom-most is a pipe of the kind made by one of Burchartz's major clients that became one of the largest arms producers for the Third Reich.

 Neither an advertisement nor a study for publication, this photomontage is instead a personal work, like a calling card.  A member of an international group of graphic designers and typographers founded by Kurt Schwitters, Burchartz was committed to advancing modern, functionalist advertising and typography.  In the late 1930's, Burchartz, like many of his clients, turned toward fascism."