Stylogeny combining Russian Futurist Book × Suprematism

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Style combination · Contrasts

Russian Futurist Book × Suprematism

Malevich went from drawing crude figures in these books to pure geometry on white; pick Suprematism for cosmic order and the Futurist book for crowded, earthy handwork.

From the research on Russian Futurist Book

Mix them and make something Russian Futurist Book Suprematism

NoiseRussian Futurist Book × Suprematism
A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Suprematism, their arrangement from Suprematism, the finish from Russian Futurist Book. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

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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 Futurist Book Suprematism

Type from Russian Futurist Book
Colour from Russian Futurist Book
Form from Suprematism
Composition from Suprematism
Surface from Russian Futurist Book

02

The type

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

Display · Russian Futurist Book

Noise

Caveat, standing in for The poets' own handwriting transferred to the lithographic stone (Rozanova and Kruchenykh's samopismo, 'self-writing')

Text · Suprematism

Kazimir Malevich's non-objective art, unveiled with the Black Square at the 0.10 exhibition in Petrograd in 1915, reduced painting to pure geometric planes floating in white, infinite space. Through the UNOVIS collective in Vitebsk and El Lissitzky's books it became a graphic language of squares, bars and circles tilted on dynamic diagonals, the seedbed of Constructivist layout.

Hanken Grotesk; Suprematism used Russian grotesques (rubleny shrift) as set by Lissitzky and Hand-drawn lithographic lettering of UNOVIS publications

03

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Russian Futurist Book, with a counter-accent from Suprematism. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Russian Futurist Book Suprematism

  • #ede4cf ground · 36%
  • #1c1a17 ink · 14%
  • #d6b44a accent · 18%
  • #b5463a accent · 14%
  • #b8996a accent · 10%
  • #8ea596 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #ede4cf;
  --ink: #1c1a17;
  --accent-1: #d6b44a;
  --accent-2: #b5463a;
  --accent-3: #b8996a;
  --accent-4: #8ea596;
  --font-display: "Caveat", cursive;
  --font-text: "Hanken Grotesk", sans-serif;
}

04

The two styles

A distressed, woodcut-style poster shows an angular black figure striding across jagged mountains and reaching toward a golden sun. A red bird, a green antlered deer, evergreen trees and small plants surround the figure beneath large red lettering. 1910–1920 · Eastern Europe Russian Futurist Book The cheap, small-run books of the Russian Cubo-Futurist poets and painters, from Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov to Goncharova, Larionov and Rozanova. Against the luxurious Symbolist book, they lithographed handwriting and crude neo-primitive drawings together, at times with rubber stamps or colour hectograph, or printed mixed letterpress founts on wallpaper, in thin sewn or stapled pamphlets. Transrational zaum words made the letter itself a visual sound. They adopted Marinetti's manifesto but obstructed his 1914 visit. The Burliuks, Malevich and Kruchenykh were Ukrainian-born, Zdanevich Georgian. An off-white cover features a large red circle crossed by a thick diagonal black bar, with a red square, blue triangle, yellow bar, and small green circle. The black uppercase word “DRIFT” angles upward across the upper portion. 1915–1925 · Eastern Europe Suprematism Kazimir Malevich's non-objective art, unveiled with the Black Square at the 0.10 exhibition in Petrograd in 1915, reduced painting to pure geometric planes floating in white, infinite space. Through the UNOVIS collective in Vitebsk and El Lissitzky's books it became a graphic language of squares, bars and circles tilted on dynamic diagonals, the seedbed of Constructivist layout.

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More combinations

With Russian Futurist Book

With Suprematism

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