The Bauhaus at the newsstand

Cover by László Moholy-Nagy

Between 1929 and 1943 die neue linie (The new line) was published by Beyer Press in Leipzig. The editors were based in Berlin, center of the fashion scene. An outstanding lifestyle magazine of its time, it provided trendy entertainment, but it had at the same time a groundbreaking, one could even say avant-garde concept : no other publication did so consistently bring in new typographic ideas. Leading designers from the Bauhaus put their stamp on the magazine’s layout. 

die neue linie focused on trends in the areas of travel, technology and architecture, in addition to fashion and literature. Aldous Huxley, Gottfried Benn and Thomas Mann wrote for the magazine. The target group was the intellectual and fashion-interested upper class, especially women, who could afford the handsome price of one Reichsmark per issue.

The magazine was considered a prestige object by its publisher. A total of 163 issues appeared with a relatively modest circulation of 40,000 copies each.
When it first appeared in September 1929, its appearance caused a sensation. Already the lower-case title was unusual, as was the design of the text, set in the sans-serif universal font developed by the Austrian Bauhaus artist Herbert Bayer (1900-1985). In addition to Bayer, another Bauhaus artist, László Moholy-Nagy, influenced the appearance with his dada-like montages of black-and-white photos and colored areas. 

Surprisingly, the publication, non-political but still modernist, was tolerated by the Nazi regime, maybe as a proof of their « largeness of spirit», but at later stages they forced it more and more to follow the party line. Its publication ended in 1943, due to paper shortages.