Stylogenyin the style of Russian Constructivism

Avant-garde · 1917–1934 · Eastern Europe

Russian Constructivism

Also known as Constructivism, Productivism, Soviet avant-garde

Constructivism rejected art for art's sake in favour of the artist-engineer building useful things for the new Soviet society. In posters, books, film publicity and state advertising it fused bold grotesque type, heavy bars, photomontage and diagonal axes into an urgent, utilitarian language of agitation that shaped modern graphic design worldwide.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices, until its AI image is made.

01

How it works

  • Build the page like a structure: heavy bars, rules and blocks of type are load-bearing elements.
  • Drive the composition along strong diagonals for urgency and forward motion.
  • Set slogans in bold, condensed grotesque capitals, stacked, rotated or exploded in scale.
  • Use photomontage and close-cropped photographs instead of drawn illustration.
  • Limit colour to red and black on the paper ground, laid flat.
  • Make every element serve the message and the mass reader; reject art for art's sake.

Moscow (Vkhutemas, LEF) and Petrograd, Soviet Russia

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, Central symmetry, Script, Whiplash line, Luxurious & glamorous, Nostalgic & retro

Palette

  • #efe6d2
  • #141414
  • #d1261c
  • #6b6b66
  • #c9b28a

Typefaces

  • Soviet heavy grotesques

    rubleny shrift

  • Rodchenko's constructed block lettering

  • Condensed sans capitals stacked in poster slogans

Known for

  • Alexander Rodchenko

    Lengiz 'Books' poster, 1924; Mosselprom advertising with Vladimir Mayakovsky

  • Varvara Stepanova

  • El Lissitzky

    For the Voice, 1923

  • Gustav Klutsis & Valentina Kulagina

    photomontage posters

  • Vladimir & Georgii Stenberg

    film posters, e.g. Man with a Movie Camera, 1929

  • Aleksei Gan

    Konstruktivizm, 1922

  • LEF and Novyi LEF journals

    1923–28

03

Make something in this style

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

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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 styleRussian Constructivism1917–1934 · Eastern Europe

After it

The styles that grew out of it.

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. Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism (Yale University Press, 1983)
  2. Philip B. Meggs & Alston W. Purvis, Meggs' History of Graphic Design

How Stylogeny researches and checks a style: where the facts come from.