Style combination · Pairs well
Russian Constructivism × Vorticism
Both shout in bold grotesque capitals with heavy rules; add Constructivist photomontage and a red second ink when a Vorticist page has to sell one clear message rather than a list of quarrels.
Mix them and make something Russian Constructivism Vorticism
01
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.
Russian Constructivism Vorticism & BLAST Typography
- Type from Vorticism
- Colour from Russian Constructivism
- Form from Russian Constructivism
- Composition from Russian Constructivism
- Surface from Vorticism
02
The type
Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.
Display · Vorticism
Wake
Archivo Black; 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
Text · Russian Constructivism
Constructivism rejected art for art's sake in favour of the artist-engineer building useful things for the new Soviet society. In posters, books, film publicity and state advertising it fused bold grotesque type, heavy bars, photomontage and diagonal axes into an urgent, utilitarian language of agitation that shaped modern graphic design worldwide.
Archivo; Russian Constructivism used Soviet heavy grotesques and Rodchenko's constructed block lettering
03
The colours
The ground and leading colours come from Russian Constructivism, with a counter-accent from Vorticism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.
Russian Constructivism Vorticism & BLAST Typography
-
#efe6d2ground · 36% -
#141414ink · 14% -
#d1261caccent · 18% -
#e8b62caccent · 14% -
#c9b28aaccent · 10% -
#e2388faccent · 8%
As CSS
:root {
--ground: #efe6d2;
--ink: #141414;
--accent-1: #d1261c;
--accent-2: #e8b62c;
--accent-3: #c9b28a;
--accent-4: #e2388f;
--font-display: "Archivo Black", sans-serif;
--font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}04
The two styles
05
More combinations
With Russian Constructivism
- Punk & DIY Zine Pairs well · Punk borrowed Constructivist red-and-black agitprop; combine photomontage with xerox grit for protest graphics.
- International Typographic Style Pairs well · Tame Constructivist diagonals with a Swiss grid for informational work that still feels urgent.
- Art Deco Contrasts · Deco used similar geometry to sell luxury; set the two side by side to decide whether a layout should glamorise or agitate.
- Belle Époque Lithographic Poster Contrasts · Sensual drawn figures versus photomontaged workers: use the contrast to choose between seduction and mobilisation.
- ROSTA Windows Contrasts · In the same revolutionary years the ROSTA windows used stencilled cartoon frames and rhymed captions instead of photomontage and set grotesques; compare them to choose between folk legibility and machine-age form.
- Suprematism Pairs well · Add photomontage and heavy grotesque slogans to Suprematist floating planes to turn pure form into a message.
- British Style Press (The Face, i-D and Arena) Pairs well · Brody's source: take Rodchenko's diagonals, heavy bars and huge constructed letters, swap agitprop for fashion and club culture, and you get a Face spread.
- Mavo Pairs well · Borrow Constructivism's heavy bars and one red ink to steady a Mavo page, but keep Mavo's hand-drawn characters and abstract machine linocuts instead of a single clear slogan.
With Vorticism
- London Transport Design Pairs well · Set a Vorticist field of angular planes under calm, evenly spaced lettering for a poster that has machine-age energy but still reads as a public service.
- Italian Futurism Contrasts · Its parent scatters words in freedom along curves and diagonals; Vorticism keeps the same shouting sizes on level, stacked lines, so decide whether the page should explode or stand like a wall.
- Arts & Crafts Movement Contrasts · BLAST refused 'a revival of lost folk art' and blasted the 'years 1837 to 1900'; set its hard black shards against a hand-printed floral page to stage machine against handicraft.
- Punk & DIY Zine Pairs well · Use BLAST's blast-and-bless lists, vertical rules and boxed numbers as the skeleton of a manifesto zine, then photocopy it so the heavy caps fill in and roughen.
- Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD) Pairs well · Wadsworth's dazzle camouflage came back on OMD's Dazzle Ships sleeve (1983): print the angular dazzle bands behind a die-cut or panelled sleeve and keep the type in small, spaced grotesque capitals.
- Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22) Contrasts · 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.