The New Chess Game

Joost Schimdt, a typographer, designed this poster for Josef Hartwig, a sculpture, for his unrealized chess set. However, modern-day recreations of the chess pieces do exist. Both men attended the Bauhaus School of Design, and its influence in reflected in their work.

The chess pieces and the poster are examples of classic Bauhaus design: clean and symbolic in terms of shape and color. Schmidt's poster creates dynamism with tilted rectangles and minimal colors. On the other hand, Hartwig's goal for the game was to minimize chess and to give the pieces an innate movement. 1 Each chess piece was given distinct physical attributes based on its abilities.

Schimdit's typography does not align with Herbert Bayer's message about a universal type. Bayer's ideal type is "uniform thickness of all parts of the letter, and renunciation of all suggestions of up and down strokes" these of which Schimidt does not comply. 2 Constructionally Schimdit does the complete opposite by including capital letters, stroke weights, and serifs.

1. "Bauhaus Chess Set by Josef Hartwig." Bauhaus Movement, https://shop.bauhaus-movement.com/bauhaus-chess-set-by-josef-hartwig/

2. PM Magazine, Vol. 6, No. 2, December 1939; facsimile reproduced in Ellen Lupton, Herbert Bayer: Inspiration and Process in Design. New York: Moleskine Books and Princeton Architectural Press, 2020. pp 105