Skip to content

Tone & intent · Stance

Rebellious & subversive

Against authority, taste or convention.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under tone & intent: what should the work make people feel or do?

styles make it: 115
as a defining choice: 34
as a usual one: 48
now and then: 33
avoid it: 31

Styles defined by it 34

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Simplicissimus Satirical Style (Munich)1896–1944 · Central EuropeThe house style of the Munich satirical weekly Simplicissimus, set by Th.
Expressionist Woodcut Graphics1905–1925 · Central Europe, Western EuropeThe graphic arm of German Expressionism, from Die Brücke in Dresden (1905) to the Berlin journals Der Sturm and Die Aktion and Frans Masereel's woodcut novels.
Russian Futurist Book1910–1920 · Eastern EuropeThe cheap, small-run books of the Russian Cubo-Futurist poets and painters, from Kruchenykh and Khlebnikov to Goncharova, Larionov and Rozanova.
Vorticism & BLAST Typography1914–1920 · Western EuropeLondon's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915).
Dada1916–1924 · Central Europe, Western EuropeBorn in wartime Zurich at the Cabaret Voltaire in 1916 and spreading to Berlin, Hanover, Cologne and Paris, Dada used chance, absurdity and provocation against the culture that had produced the war.
Estridentismo (Stridentist) Graphics1921–1927 · Latin America & CaribbeanMexico's first avant-garde (1921-27), launched when Manuel Maples Arce pasted his manifesto Actual No. 1 on Mexico City walls.
Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)1922–1929 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe print side of São Paulo's Modernismo (1922-29), set in jobbing print shops.
Mavo1923–1925 · East AsiaTokyo's anarchist avant-garde, founded in July 1923 by Murayama Tomoyoshi, back from a year in Berlin, with four former Futurists, and its magazine MAVO (seven issues, July 1924 to August 1925).
Situationist Détournement Graphics1956–1972 · Western Europe, Northern EuropeGraphics of the Letterist and Situationist Internationals (1956–1972), built on détournement: taking existing words and pictures (comic strips, advertisements, news photographs, city maps, classic texts) and turning them against their source.
Tropicália Graphic Design1964–1975 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe graphic language of Brazil's Tropicália, foreshadowed by Rogério Duarte's poster for Deus e o Diabo na Terra do Sol (1964), which already devours Ulm modernism, and set by his 1968 covers for Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.
Angura Theatre Poster1965–1985 · East AsiaThe posters of Japan's underground (angura) theatre from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, made for troupes such as Kara Jūrō's Jōkyō Gekijō and Terayama Shūji's Tenjō Sajiki.
Black Panther Party Graphics1967–1980 · North AmericaThe visual language of the Black Panther Party, created largely by its Minister of Culture, Emory Douglas, for the weekly newspaper The Black Panther.
Atelier Populaire (May '68 Screenprint Poster)1968 · Western EuropeThe posters of the Atelier populaire, set up when students, teachers and artists occupied the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris on 14 May 1968, until police cleared the school on 27 June.
Gráfica del 68 (Mexican Student Movement Graphics)1968 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe graphics of the 1968 Mexican student movement, made in days by brigades in the print workshops of San Carlos and La Esmeralda and in improvised school workshops.
Underground Comix1968–1982 · North America, Western EuropeSelf-published, adults-only comic books from the San Francisco counterculture, made outside the Comics Code on the newsstand comic's format.
Turkish Weekly Humour Magazines (Gırgır to Uykusuz)1972–2025 · Middle East & North AfricaIstanbul's weekly cartoon magazines, from the Aral brothers' Gırgır (1972), which sold up to about half a million copies, through the chain of breakaways that followed it: Limon, LeMan, Penguen and Uykusuz.
Afrobeat Sleeve Art1974–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe painted and collaged record covers of Nigerian Afrobeat, defined by Lemi Ghariokwu's sleeves for Fela Kuti from Alagbon Close (1974) onward.
Punk & DIY Zine1976–1986 · Western Europe, North AmericaThe graphic voice of punk rock in fanzines, record sleeves and gig flyers: images and words cut from newspapers, typed or scrawled, pasted down and run off on a photocopier.
Stencil Street Art1978–present · Western Europe, Latin America & Caribbean, North America, Global / networkedPictures cut rather than drawn: a photograph is reduced to two or three flat tones, cut into card and sprayed onto a wall, usually uninvited, so one hard-edged figure appears in the street, in black with at most one accent colour.
Pixação (São Paulo Tag Reto)1980–present · Latin America & CaribbeanThe name-writing of São Paulo's pixadores, which since the 1980s has covered walls and façades and, from the 1990s, the upper floors of tower blocks.
ACT UP & Gran Fury AIDS Activist Graphics1987–1995 · North AmericaThe graphics of New York's AIDS activist movement: the SILENCE=DEATH poster of 1987, a pink triangle above white capitals on black, and the posters, stickers, T-shirts, billboards and bus ads of Gran Fury (1988–1995), ACT UP's 'unofficial propaganda ministry'.
Black Metal Graphics1990–present · Northern Europe, Global / networkedThe visual language of black metal, fixed by Norway's second wave in the early 1990s, now worldwide, since the 2010s borrowed by mainstream acts (Szpajdel's Rihanna and Metallica logos, 2016).
Bitterkomix (Afrikaans Underground Comics)1992–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe Afrikaans underground comics magazine founded in Stellenbosch in 1992 by Anton Kannemeyer (Joe Dog) and Conrad Botes (Konradski), with Mark Kannemeyer (Lorcan White).
Indonesian Woodcut Activism (Taring Padi)1998–present · Southeast AsiaThe protest graphics of Taring Padi, the collective founded by students and activists in Yogyakarta in 1998 as Suharto fell, and of the punk and activist woodcut scenes around it.
Glitch Art & Datamosh Graphics2001–present · Global / networked, Western Europe, Central Europe, Northern Europe, North AmericaAn art and design practice that makes digital failure the picture.
Oaxacan Protest Printmaking & Street Graphics (ASARO)2006–present · Latin America & CaribbeanThe street graphics of Oaxaca City since the 2006 teachers' strike and APPO uprising, when ASARO, the stencil collective Lapiztola and later workshops such as Colectivo Subterráneos made the colonial centre's walls a newspaper.
Arab Independent Comics (Samandal, TokTok, Lab619, Skefkef)2007–present · Middle East & North AfricaAdult comics magazines edited by Arab artists' collectives since 2007, at times with a ministry grant or an NGO partner: Samandal in Beirut, TokTok in Cairo, Lab619 in Tunis and Skefkef in Casablanca.
Egyptian Revolutionary Street Art (Mohamed Mahmoud Murals)2011–2014 · Middle East & North AfricaThe street art of Egypt's 2011 revolution and the years after it, when Cairo's walls, above all around Tahrir and Mohamed Mahmoud Street, became what Ammar Abo Bakr called a newspaper.
Syrian Revolution Graphics (Kafranbel Banners & Poster Collectives)2011–2024 · Middle East & North AfricaProtest graphics of the Syrian uprising from 2011, made to be photographed and shared online rather than to last on a wall.
Brutalist Web Design2014–present · Global / networked, Central EuropeA reaction against templated, conversion-optimised web design that exposes the raw materials of the browser: default system fonts, blue underlined links, visible borders, unstyled forms and plain document flow.
Hong Kong Protest Art (Umbrella Movement to the 2019–20 Protests)2014–2020 · East AsiaThe graphics of Hong Kong's democracy protests, from the 2014 Umbrella Movement to the national security law of 2020, in two linked media.
Post-Binary Typography (Bye Bye Binary and Inclusive French Type)2018–present · Western Europe, Central EuropeA Franco-Belgian type practice that redesigns written French for gender inclusion inside the word.
Chilean Estallido Social Graphics (Revuelta Popular of 2019–20)2019–2022 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe street graphics of Chile's popular revolt, from 18 October 2019 to the March 2020 lockdowns, when a leaderless movement covered Santiago's Plaza de la Dignidad, the Alameda and other cities' walls.
Woman, Life, Freedom Protest Graphics (Iran and the Diaspora)2022–present · Middle East & North Africa, Global / networkedPosters and digital graphics made in Iran and the diaspora after Mahsa (Jina) Amini died in morality-police custody in September 2022.

Styles that often use it 48

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 33

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent