Type design always played a major role at the Bauhaus. It was not until 1925, under the direction of Herbert Bayer, that the students at the Workshop for Advertising and Printing investigated and tested various font designs. As early as 1919, typography was experimented with in the »Theory of Writing Forms« course. Some Bauhaus teachers were particularly involved in the project to develop an economic typography that reflected the spirit of the Bauhaus, including Oskar Schlemmer, Johannes Itten, László Moholy-Nagy, and Wassily Kandinsky. Joost Schmidt, Josef Albers, and Herbert Bayer supported this project from the student side.
In order to find a suitable type design, they experimented continuously with the basic shapes circle, square, and triangle and the primary colors red, blue, and yellow#m. Lothar Schreyer’s printing type theory course was one of the first investigations into geometric shapes. In 1921, he had students create alphabets based on circles, squares, and triangles and the three primary colors. In 1923, Josef Albers also attempted to create a »combination font« that would unite square, circle, and quarter circle.