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Tone & intent · Reason

Technological & futurist

Speed, machines, progress and the future.

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

styles make it: 64
as a defining choice: 13
as a usual one: 26
now and then: 25
avoid it: 2

Styles defined by it 13

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

Italian Futurism1909–1944 · Southern EuropeLaunched by Marinetti's 1909 manifesto, Futurism glorified speed, machines, the city and war, and turned the printed page into an explosive, noisy field.
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.
Streamline Moderne1930–1945 · North AmericaThe late, chiefly American phase of Art Deco, in which aerodynamic science became a visual language for a Depression-era culture hungry for progress.
Googie & Atomic Age1945–1965 · North AmericaThe exuberant commercial modernism of post-war American roadside culture (coffee shops, motels, car washes, bowling alleys and neon signs), named in 1952 by critic Douglas Haskell after John Lautner's Googie's coffee shop in Los Angeles (1949).
Machine-Age Simplified Arabic Type1947–present · Middle East & North AfricaArabic redrawn for the machine rather than the reed pen.
Roman-like Thai Typography (modern loopless Thai)1973–present · Southeast AsiaA Thai type genre that drops the head loops of most Thai letters, so the script reads as an even sans like Helvetica.
Métal hurlant Science-Fiction Comics (Mœbius, Druillet & Les Humanoïdes Associés)1974–1987 · Western Europe, North AmericaThe adult science-fiction comics of Métal hurlant, the Paris magazine founded in 1974 by Mœbius, Philippe Druillet, Jean-Pierre Dionnet and Bernard Farkas.
Bitmap & Pixel Graphics1977–1995 · North America, East AsiaGraphics and lettering built from the square pixels of low-resolution screens (arcade and console sprites, home-computer displays and the first graphical user interfaces), where every dot was placed by hand within tight limits of memory, resolution and palette.
Demoscene Graphics (Cracktros, Demos & Text-Mode Art)1985–present · Northern Europe, Central Europe, Western Europe, North America, Global / networkedThe graphics of the demoscene, a mainly European community of coders, graphicians and musicians that grew from the intros software crackers added to pirated Commodore 64 and Amiga games in the mid-1980s.
Techno-Futurist Graphics1986–2002 · Western Europe, East AsiaElectronic-music and video-game graphics of the late 1980s and 1990s that turned corporate modernism into a sci-fi consumer fantasy.
Y2K Futurism1997–2005 · Global / networkedThe optimistic, chrome-plated vision of the future that surrounded the turn of the millennium, spread by consumer electronics, music videos, games, fashion and dot-com branding.
Fantasy User Interface (FUI) & Sci-Fi HUD1999–present · North America, Western Europe, Global / networkedFantasy user interfaces are the screen graphics of films and series: computer screens, holograms and helmet HUDs made to be watched for a few seconds, not used.
Dark Tech Minimalism2019–present · North America, Global / networkedThe dark, restrained aesthetic of developer tools and SaaS landing pages since about 2019: near-black grounds, grey type ramps, a neutral grotesque such as Inter, hairline borders, soft radial glows and bento grids of crisp product screenshots.

Styles that often use it 26

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

Styles that use it now and then 25

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.

Geometric sansin 28 of 64
Illusion of depthin 33 of 64
Geometric primitivesin 38 of 64
3D renderin 19 of 64
Motion & broadcastin 23 of 64
Gradientsin 29 of 64

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in tone & intent