ITC Bauhaus/ITC Avant Garde Gothic

ITC Bauhaus

ITC Bauhaus was inspired by the Universal typeface designed in 1925 by Herbert Bayer. The prototypes for the face were created by him while he was a professor at the famed Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. In the 1970s, many typefaces were designed based on Bayer’s original lettershapes. ITC Bauhaus was the only, however, to be made into a large family and licensed to typesetting equipment manufacturers.

While no italic was drawn for the family, Bauhaus’ simple geometric shapes, monotone and even stroke weights create a strong graphic presence.

ITC Avant Garde Gothic

There were two original designs of ITC Avant Garde Gothic: one for setting headlines and one for text copy. The differences between the two were subtle, but the display design contained ligatures and alternate characters and the text design did not. When Avant Garde Gothic was turned into a digital font, only the text design was chosen, and the ligatures and alternate characters were not included.

Now, OpenType technology has allowed ITC to release a complete version of Avant Garde Gothic, offering the full breadth of Lubalin and Carnese’s design — all the original alternate characters and ligatures, plus many extras. Avant Garde Gothic Pro includes a suite of additional cap and lowercase alternates, new ligatures that were drawn just for this release, and a collection of biform characters (lowercase letters with cap proportions).

Download the Type Trading Card here (PDF)

• Allan Haley is Director of Words & Letters at Monotype Imaging. Here he is responsible for strategic planning and creative implementation of just about everything related to typeface designs. He is also responsible for editorial content for the company’s type libraries and Web sites.
• Prior to working for Monotype, Mr. Haley was Principal of Resolution, a consulting firm with expertise in fonts, font technology, type and typographic communication. He was also executive vice president of International Typeface Corporation.
• Mr. Haley is ex officio Chairman of the Board of the Society of Typographic Aficionados, and past President of the New York Type Directors Club. He is highly regarded as an educator and is a frequently requested speaker at national computer and design conferences.
• Mr. Haley is also a prolific writer, with five books on type and graphic communication and hundreds of articles for graphic design publications to his credit.