Style combination · Contrasts

Brazilian Modernismo Graphics × Vorticism

Both set heavy jobbing grotesque with thick rules and bars in a little magazine, BLAST in 1914 and Klaxon in 1922; BLAST shouts lists beside machine abstractions, Klaxon keeps one quiet cover forme, jokes about the sonnet trade and draws figures in contour.

From the research on Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)

Mix them and make something Brazilian Modernismo Graphics Vorticism

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Vorticism, their arrangement from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics, the finish from Vorticism. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Vorticism & BLAST Typography

Type from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics: Type as image
Eclectic mixing
Colour from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics: Limited spot colours
Flat fields
Form from Vorticism: Angular & zigzag
Non-representational
Composition from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics: Extreme scale contrast
Dynamic asymmetry
Surface from Vorticism: Carved line
Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Brazilian Modernismo Graphics

Riot

Anton, standing in for Heavy jobbing grotesque capitals (KLAXON across every Klaxon cover, 1922-23; condensed grotesques for the mock 'Aviso á Praça' and price list)

Text · Vorticism

London's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915). Its manifesto pages shout lists to BLAST and BLESS in a heavy jobbing grotesque, in level lines of jumping sizes, staggered between vertical rules and boxed numerals. Some lists are centred like a playbill, and the jobbing printer William Henry Leveridge may have done some or all of the layout. The pictures are interlocking angular planes of machines, docks and cities, cut in wood or drawn for line blocks in flat black and white, beside halftone plates of paintings.

Archivo; Vorticism used Grotesque No. 9 (Stephenson Blake), the heavy jobbing grotesque of most of BLAST's manifesto pages and Latin Bold for the boxed section numerals of the manifesto

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Brazilian Modernismo Graphics, with a counter-accent from Vorticism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Vorticism & BLAST Typography

#ece4c8 ground · 36%
#1b1915 ink · 14%
#d8b628 accent · 18%
#c8402a accent · 14%
#e2388f accent · 10%
#e08a6c accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ece4c8;
  --ink: #1b1915;
  --accent-1: #d8b628;
  --accent-2: #c8402a;
  --accent-3: #e2388f;
  --accent-4: #e08a6c;
  --font-display: "Anton", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

Use it with care

Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22): Antropofagia's cannibal metaphor and its Tupi words ('Tupy, or not tupy') were a São Paulo elite's figure of speech about Indigenous peoples, not their own voice: borrow the method of swallowing and recombining foreign models, not Tupi people or ritual as decoration. Much of this work is still in copyright in Brazil (life plus 70 years): Guilherme de Almeida (died 1969), Anita Malfatti (1964), Tarsila do Amaral (1973), Di Cavalcanti (1976), John Graz (1980), Paim (1988) and Yan de Almeida Prado (1991); Brecheret (1955) entered the Brazilian public domain on 1 January 2026. A straight green-and-yellow flag pastiche now reads in Brazil as a partisan emblem, so quote Pau Brasil's gesture of rewriting the flag rather than the flag itself.

The two styles

1922–1929 · Latin America & Caribbean Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) The print side of São Paulo's Modernismo (1922-29), set in jobbing print shops. Klaxon (1922-23) kept one cover for all its issues: a heavy grotesque title and fat lowercase words locked around a giant condensed A in a second ink, a thick black bar and the number turned on its side, with only the card and ink changing. Its back covers made sponsors' adverts into word games and mocked the sonnet trade. Books brought title pages set as justified letter blocks, Tarsila do Amaral's flag cover for Pau Brasil, and contour drawings like her Abaporu sketch for the Manifesto Antropófago (1928). 1914–1920 · Western Europe Vorticism & BLAST Typography London's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915). Its manifesto pages shout lists to BLAST and BLESS in a heavy jobbing grotesque, in level lines of jumping sizes, staggered between vertical rules and boxed numerals. Some lists are centred like a playbill, and the jobbing printer William Henry Leveridge may have done some or all of the layout. The pictures are interlocking angular planes of machines, docks and cities, cut in wood or drawn for line blocks in flat black and white, beside halftone plates of paintings.

More combinations

With Brazilian Modernismo Graphics

With Vorticism

Every style combination