Studio Brief 1 - Final Bank Notes

Below are the two finished resolutions for the German bank notes that celebrate the Bauhaus movement.  The first three are with visuals and the other three are the stripped versions that I ended up choosing to screen print. The overall aesthetics of the notes communicates a contemporary and modernist style with heavy influence from the Bauhaus school. The majority off the notes relates to the Bauhaus movement, which demonstrates a contextual and well thought out banknote. It's timeless aesthetic expresses the famous principle of form follows function. The banknotes are stripped of all unwanted features. Therefore, you are only left with the bare essentials which is enough for the user to understand the banknote. 

The Bauhaus movement is celebrated in a unique and individual manner and as a whole. The main goal was to use the three iconic geometric shapes made famous by the movement with each one demonstrating a particular area of the school. The three areas that were chosen were product design for the triangle, Graphic design for the circle and architecture for the square. All three areas change the way we think and interact with the designs and products that came out of these three disciplines. The inventive and creativity expressed in these areas still massively influence the modern world. In these three disciplines a visual has been implemented to celebrate the inventions and creativity within these areas. For example Christian dell's scissor wall lamp has been used to represent the area of product design. Upon many inventive products the scissor lamp was one of the most famous and influence products that came out of the Bauhaus school and is now a huge source of influence for other manufacturers of lamps in the 21st century. This concept is used for the other two notes representing Graphic design and architectures. El-lissitzky work for his influential work in Graphic Design and Gertrud Arndt, for Architecture.

Other conceptual features that celebrate the work and history of the movement is the typeface. The typeface used is 'P22 Bayer Universal' created by Herbert Bayer who designed the original Bauhaus banknote back in 1923. The typeface is a tribute to Herbert Bayer for the influential figure he was in the creation of the original Bauhaus bank note. The notes demonstrate that they are a tribute to not only three disciplines but also influential figures in the form of other design aspects used in the notes. To round of the conceptual aspect one part of the Bauhaus manifesto have been embedded within all the banknotes. The manifesto essentially rounds up the whole concept. The section translates to 'Let us strive for, conceive and create the new building of the future that will unite every discipline, architecture and sculpture and painting, and which will one day rise heavenwards from the million hands of craftsmen as a clear symbol of a new belief to come." It communicates the importance of each disciplines in the future which will one day rise heavenwards to a new belief.