Style combination · Contrasts

Italian Futurism × Vorticism

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.

From the research on Vorticism & BLAST Typography

Mix them and make something Italian Futurism Vorticism

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Italian Futurism, their arrangement from Italian Futurism, 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.

Italian Futurism Vorticism & BLAST Typography

Type from Italian Futurism: Eclectic mixing
Rotated & vertical setting
Colour from Vorticism: Monochrome
Limited spot colours
Form from Italian Futurism: Angular & zigzag
Stylised figuration
Composition from Italian Futurism: Diagonal axis
Visual tension
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 · Italian Futurism

Future

Alfa Slab One, standing in for Mixed jobbing grotesques, Egyptians and Didones from the printer's case

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 Vorticism, with a counter-accent from Italian Futurism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Italian Futurism Vorticism & BLAST Typography

#efe9dc ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#e8b62c accent · 18%
#e2388f accent · 14%
#d22b1f accent · 10%
#5b4486 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #efe9dc;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #e8b62c;
  --accent-2: #e2388f;
  --accent-3: #d22b1f;
  --accent-4: #5b4486;
  --font-display: "Alfa Slab One", serif;
  --font-text: "Archivo", sans-serif;
}

The two styles

1909–1944 · Southern Europe Italian Futurism Launched by Marinetti's 1909 manifesto, Futurism glorified speed, machines, the city and war, and turned the printed page into an explosive, noisy field. Its 'words in freedom' scattered type of every size and face across diagonals and spirals, while Depero's advertising of the 1920s–30s recast the same dynamism as bold, mechanical commercial art. 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 Italian Futurism

With Vorticism

Every style combination