While Bayer’s stark geometric forms were driven by ideology rather than aesthetics, subsequent typefaces were more pragmatic, reflecting a search for clean forms suited to the mechanised process of printing. Herbert Bayer, proposal for the Universal type, 1925 It was a radical step in Germany, where Gothic script was still widely used and where all nouns are capitalised, and although it was never cut as type, the concepts behind it had a lasting influence on the following generation of typefaces. Herbert Bayer’s Proposal for a Universal Type (1925) presented idealised, minimalistic letterforms, advocating not only a simplified, lower-case-only alphabet, but also a complete reform of orthography. Specimen of Printing Types, Vincent Figgins, 1834 In the early 20th century, a new generation of artists, designers and architects took a different approach to sans serif design, rejecting existing conventions and searching for letterforms that would reflect the technological developments of the era. These rather unrefined letterforms were based on the skeletons and structures of previous serif text typefaces, characterised more by the absence of serifs than by the introduction of any fresh, unique feature. Some two decades later, a very heavy serifless font appeared under the name that we use today, sans serif, in the Vincent Figgins specimen book from 1832. The first low-contrast Latin letters without serif terminations appeared on jubilee coins from 1809, and later under the name ‘Egyptian’ in the 1816 William Caslon IV type specimens.
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