Stylogenyin the style of Brazilian Concrete Design

Rational modernism · 1951–1975 · Latin America & Caribbean

Brazilian Concrete Design

Also known as Concretismo, Brazilian concrete and neo-concrete design, Design concreto

A São Paulo and Rio movement in which concrete art, concrete poetry and Brazil's first design offices shared one vocabulary: Max Bill's mathematically generated geometry, serial repetition and sans-serif type. Sparked by Bill's 1951 retrospective at MASP and the first São Paulo Bienal, it passed through Ulm via Alexandre Wollner into Forminform (1957) and ESDI (1963), producing rigorous trademarks, posters and a celebrated newspaper redesign.

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The bold black word “movimento” sits across the top of an off-white poster. Vertical sequences of red, yellow and black semicircles increase dramatically in size from left to right, with the largest shapes cropped by the edges.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

01

How it works

  • Generate the image from a rule (repetition, rotation or progression of one module) rather than from depiction.
  • Treat the page as a field of tension between a few flat geometric elements and the white ground.
  • Set words spatially, as concrete poetry does, so that position, spacing and size carry meaning.
  • Restrict colour to one or two saturated inks with black on white.
  • Construct trademarks as geometric signs that can be drawn with ruler and compass.

São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

02

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition
Space & hierarchy
Typography
Colour
Form & shape
Surface & texture
Ornament
Imagery
Medium & production
Tone & intent
Avoids
Floral & vegetal, Abundant decoration, Naturalistic depiction, Painterly illustration, Script, Ornamented display, Painterly brushwork

Palette

  • #f4f2ec
  • #121212
  • #e2361f
  • #f3c316
  • #1f4e9e

Typefaces

  • Futura

    concrete poetry

  • Akzidenz-Grotesk

  • Helvetica

  • Univers

Known for

  • Antônio Maluf

    poster for the 1st Bienal de São Paulo, 1951

  • Alexandre Wollner

    4th Bienal de São Paulo poster, 1957; co-founder of Forminform, 1957, and ESDI, 1963

  • Geraldo de Barros

    Grupo Ruptura; Forminform

  • Amílcar de Castro

    Jornal do Brasil redesign, late 1950s

  • Lygia Pape

    Piraquê biscuit packaging

  • Aloísio Magalhães

    IV Centenário do Rio de Janeiro symbol, 1965; cruzeiro banknotes from 1970

  • Noigandres group

    Augusto & Haroldo de Campos, Décio Pignatari (concrete poetry)

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Brazilian Concrete Design’s design choices and checks it against them. It takes about a minute, and you get a link to share.

Rule out a choice, read the prompt, or blend in another style: take this brief to Mix styles.

04

Where it comes from, and what it’s close to

Before it

The style it grew out of, and the styles it borrowed from.

This styleBrazilian Concrete Design1951–1975 · Latin America & Caribbean

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

No later style in the atlas grew out of it yet.

Alike in its design choices

Styles that make many of the same choices, related or not, besides those above.

05

Real works

Artefacts in museums, libraries and archives that show the style, linked at their source.

06

Sources

  1. MoMA, Antonio Maluf, Poster for the First Bienal de São Paulo, 1951 (https://www.moma.org/collection/works/7587)
  2. Alexandre Wollner, Design visual 50 anos (2003)
  3. Revista Pesquisa FAPESP on Alexandre Wollner (https://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/es/un-puente-al-mundo/)

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