In Typography, groups were assigned to a certain era to study typographers and typefaces made during it. While the group was assigned an era, each student was to choose a different typeface and research its origins, then create a record player cover only using that typeface. I was a part of the Modernist Era, defined as the years in between 1920 and 1960. 

 

In my preliminary research, I found this style of typeface named Grotesque or Grotesk. I found it somewhat humorous that there was a time when san-serif typefaces were considered ugly and not the norm. This led me to find “Breite Grotesk”, it was the official publication typeface for Bauhaus in the 1920s. Breite Grotesk is quite a mystery, there is no known designer for the typeface but two type foundries are credited for licensing it, Stemple and John. 

 

As for the design of the album cover, I decided to use a very Bauhaus-inspired design with geometric lines and their love of primary colors. I executed the design in Illustrator and was able to play around with printing on an ink jet printer. This was my first experience really needing to rely on bleeds and margins to make sure that the print came out correctly, especially because I chose to print on a photo type of paper. This meant that it was thicker than I was used to and the sheen of it made it particularly hard to fold. Through some experimentation, I was able to get it to print correctly as well as cut, fold, and glue it together as best as I could. The end product is something I am really proud of, especially using a new paper medium.