Schwitters proposed a monocase system, adopting a rectilinear interpretation of roman capitals, and contrasting these with six vowel alternate characters, A, e, J, O, Ü, and y scaled to the same height but based upon Carolingian lowercase.

Unlike his contemporaries, Herbert Bayer, Theo van Doesburg, and Jan Tschichold all who produced experimental universal alphabets that rejected uppercase[citation needed], Schwitters retained the form of roman capitals.

Schwitters first developed four intermediate systematic scripts that had round bold vowels combined with straight consonants.

His actual Systemschrift should have each letter correspond to its point and type of articulation, similar to Hangeul.

Consonants would be built as strokes diverging from a vertical I-like bar, vowels would have base forms that ranged from a turned U, over O to U and that could have their stems shortened or crossbars added.