$99 Websites + Website Design: How to Create a Bauhaus Poster in Adobe InDesign

Final product image — What You'll Be Creating

Graphic designers owe a huge amount to the legacy of the Bauhaus, a German art school that was one of the most influential design movements to emerge in Europe during the pre-war period. The designers and architects who were part of the Bauhaus went on to define some of the most recognizable traits of modernist graphic design.

Here we’ll look at how to create a tribute poster, using typography, colors and grids which are trademarks of the Bauhaus style. This is a great all-round introduction to poster design in InDesign for beginners.

Looking for graphic templates inspired by the Bauhaus and minimalist design? Then check out Envato Elements! Envato Elements has a large collection of graphic templates for posters and every other design need you might have.

Follow along with us on our Envato Tuts+ YouTube channel, where you can find other awesome design video tutorials and free courses:

What Is the Bauhaus?

Before we begin to design our InDesign poster, let’s take a quick look at what the Bauhaus was, and its lasting influence on design today.

Bauhaus was a revolutionary school of art, architecture and design established by Walter Gropius at Weimar in Germany in 1919. The name Bauhaus combines the German words for building (bau) and house (haus), which might have hinted that the founders wanted to create a guild or fraternity that would work towards building a new and different German society.

The influence of Bauhaus was widespread across many different design disciplines, establishing new and exciting ways of approaching modernist architecture, interiors, art, photography, and graphics. The school moved to Dessau in Germany in 1925 and finally to Berlin in 1932, before closing in 1933.

In this InDesign poster tutorial, the focus is on the primary colors frequently adopted by Bauhaus designers, as well as sans serif typography which was a defining feature of Bauhaus-era graphic design. We'll also be learning how to make a poster using InDesign in general! You'll be able to apply these techniques to all kinds of different designs.

What You’ll Need to Create Your InDesign Poster

As well as access to Adobe InDesign, you’ll also need to download the following images and fonts from Envato Elements before beginning this InDesign poster tutorial:

1. How to Set Up Your Poster Document in InDesign

Step 1

Open InDesign and go to File > New > Document.

Choose A3 for the page size, and deselect Facing Pages. Add 10 mm Margins and a 5 mm Bleed, before clicking Create.

Step 2

Expand the Layers panel (Window > Layers) and double-click on Layer 1, renaming it Background.

Choose New Layer from the panel’s drop-down menu, and name this second layer Texture.

Create three more new layers—Guides, Shapes, and Type.

Lock all the layers except Guides, which we’ll work on first.

Step 3

Working on the Guides layer, pull down a guide from the top ruler (View > Show Rulers) to the center point of the page, at 210 mm.

Drag a second across from the left-hand ruler to the vertical center-point, at 148.5 mm.

Step 4

Select the Line Tool (\) and, holding Shift, drag to create a vertical line running on top of the guide below.

Then create a second line over the top of the horizontal guide.

Step 5

Select both lines and Right-Click > Transform > Rotate.

Type in 45 and click OK.

You can use these guides as a basis for making sure your text frames are lined up at 45-degree angles. It’s easy to copy and paste them and create more guides as you work.