Herbert Bayer and the Bank Notes of Thuringia

Herbert Bayer and the Bank Notes of Thuringia 

At this young age, he quickly developed into a designer of wide-ranging abilities, designing a bold, functional typographic banknotes (inflation currency) for the state bank of Thuringia in 1923.

These were a set of eight notes, letterpress on paper. Banknotes designed for the State Bank of Thuringia by Herbert Bayer in 1923. The plain sans serif typography exemplifies the Bauhaus aesthetic. Each note measured approx. 7.0 cm x 13.8 cm | 2.25"h x 5.5"w.

The banknotes can be found in various collections, one of them is the Moma collection.

In 1923 World War I devastated the German economy and reparations made for rampant inflation. Hyperinflation set in and, as prices rose exponentially, common currency became worthless. To meet the demand of the paper notes, they were printed almost nightly in every region, jumping from thousands to millions to billions. These notes are known as Notgeld, or “emergency money.”

Herbert Bayer at this young age of 23, he was called upon to design a series of notgeld for Thuringia, a liberal stronghold and then capital of Germany. Virtually overnight (accounts vary from one to three days), Bayer created a full range of bank-notes. The results are stunning examples of modernist design, shining the light of rational thinking forward rather than seeking comfort in the past.

Clarity and immediacy were the first priority. The typography is dominated by the use of sans serif. In big, beautiful, arabic numerals the value of each note is the most prominent element, awash in a field of optimistic light color, reprising rather playfully as patterning on each side. The content is blocked in an orderly grid, rotating 90° to place the text naturally aside.

The only non-typographic element present is a modestly scaled crest of the Weimar Republic, with the sole purpose to serve as the official seal. No other work in the canon of modernist design so clearly delivers on the principles of Bauhaus modernism: honesty, functionality, and beauty.