How 12 Famous Logos Would Look if Bauhaus Had Designed Them

It’s nearly impossible to overstate Bauhaus’ influence on contemporary design. Whether you’re scanning the album art of the indie and electronic sections at your local record store or furniture-shopping at Design Within Reach, you’re all but guaranteed to encounter a design or two that references the iconic German school and design movement. Bauhaus of course continues to exert a lasting impact on typography and commercial graphic design, too, so it makes perfect sense that 99designs, an online platform for designers and creative professionals, is celebrating the movement’s centenary.

In honor of the Bauhaus’ 100th anniversary, 99designs asked members of its platform to reimagine the logos of some of the biggest brands in the world—including Netflix, Google, Adidas, and Apple—to match the movement’s visual and philosophical aesthetic.

“This project really demonstrates the long-lasting, global impact that Bauhaus has had on artists all over the world,” says Patrick Llewellyn, CEO of 99designs. “The work featured has been created by designers in more than 10 countries from Argentina, Guatemala, and the U.S., to Russia, Latvia, and the U.K.”

The 99designs contributors do a fine job of imparting Bauhaus’ most essential tenets. The onus on unfussy minimalism, sans-serif typeface, balanced geometric forms, and primary colors is apparent throughout the redesigns. And the method by which they were created dovetails with the school’s embrace of technology.

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“When the Bauhaus movement began, it was at a time when the world was on the brink of massive technological change,” says Patrick. “While many artists were worried that mainstream adoption of electricity and mass production would be the end of art as we knew it, the Bauhaus group were instead inspired by the change and progress they saw happening around them.”

Take a look at the gallery above to see 12 of our favorite logos from the project, and read more about it here.