Stylogenyin the style of De Stijl

Avant-garde · 1917–1931 · Western Europe

De Stijl

Also known as Neoplasticism, Nieuwe Beelding, Elementarism

A Dutch movement formed around Theo van Doesburg's journal De Stijl and Piet Mondrian's Neoplasticism, which sought universal harmony through the most elementary means: horizontal and vertical lines, rectangles, the three primaries and black, white and grey. In typography it produced block-constructed letters and orthogonal, asymmetric layouts whose principles flowed directly into the Bauhaus and the New Typography.

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A geometric poster features the words “NEW ORDER” in heavy black capitals at the upper left. Thick black bars divide an off-white background into unequal rectangles filled with red, blue, yellow, grey, and white.
AI-generated by Stylogeny from the style’s design choices. Not a real or historical work.

01

How it works

  • Use only horizontals and verticals (van Doesburg's later Elementarism tilts the whole system 45°).
  • Divide the field asymmetrically into rectangles of unequal size held in dynamic equilibrium.
  • Colour only with red, yellow and blue plus black, white and grey, in flat, unmodulated fields.
  • Separate planes with heavy black bars instead of outlines, texture or ornament.
  • Construct letters from square modules and straight strokes so type obeys the same grid as the composition.
  • Strive for the universal over the individual: eliminate gesture, texture and representation.

Leiden and Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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
Biomorphic curves, Whiplash line, Floral & vegetal, Gradients, Central symmetry, Naturalistic depiction, Horror vacui

Palette

  • #f5f3ee
  • #111111
  • #d52b1e
  • #f4c20d
  • #1f4ea1
  • #9e9e9a

Typefaces

  • Theo van Doesburg's rectilinear alphabet

    1919; digitised as Architype Van Doesburg

  • Vilmos Huszár's block-letter De Stijl masthead

    1917

  • Plain grotesques for running text

Known for

  • Theo van Doesburg

    De Stijl journal, 1917–32; rectilinear alphabet, 1919

  • Piet Mondrian

    Composition with Red, Blue and Yellow, 1930

  • Vilmos Huszár

    De Stijl cover and masthead, 1917

  • Bart van der Leck

  • Gerrit Rietveld

    Red Blue Chair, c. 1918–23; Schröder House, 1924

  • Café Aubette interiors, Strasbourg

    van Doesburg, Sophie Taeuber-Arp & Hans Arp, 1926–28

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from De Stijl’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 styleDe Stijl1917–1931 · Western Europe

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. Hans L. C. Jaffé, De Stijl 1917–1931: The Dutch Contribution to Modern Art (1956)
  2. Carel Blotkamp et al., De Stijl: The Formative Years, 1917–1922 (MIT Press, 1986)
  3. Philip B. Meggs & Alston W. Purvis, Meggs' History of Graphic Design

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