Stylogenyin the style of Italian Futurism

Avant-garde · 1909–1944 · Southern Europe

Italian Futurism

Also known as Futurismo, Parole in libertà, Words in freedom, Second Futurism

Launched by Marinetti's 1909 manifesto, Futurism glorified speed, machines, the city and war, and turned the printed page into an explosive, noisy field. Its 'words in freedom' scattered type of every size and face across diagonals and spirals, while Depero's advertising of the 1920s–30s recast the same dynamism as bold, mechanical commercial art.

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

01

How it works

  • Destroy the harmonious page: scatter 'words in freedom' along diagonals, curves and spirals.
  • Mix many typefaces, sizes, weights and colours within one line so the type sounds like noise.
  • Let letter size express volume and speed: onomatopoeia shouts in giant capitals, asides whisper in small type.
  • Replace punctuation and syntax with mathematical signs, arrows and rules.
  • Show motion by repeating, faceting and blurring forms along lines of force.
  • Glorify the machine, speed and the modern city; make the page agitate rather than soothe.

Milan, later Rome and Rovereto, Italy

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
Central symmetry, Classical text block, Measured density, Calm & contemplative, Nostalgic & retro, Floral & vegetal

Palette

  • #f1ead8
  • #141414
  • #d22b1f
  • #f2b705
  • #1d5fa8
  • #7a7d82

Typefaces

  • Mixed jobbing grotesques, Egyptians and Didones from the printer's case

  • Hand-drawn onomatopoeic lettering

    parole in libertà

  • Depero's block-built display lettering

Known for

  • Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

    Zang Tumb Tumb, 1914; Les Mots en liberté futuristes, 1919

  • Fortunato Depero

    Depero Futurista 'bolted book', 1927; Campari advertising

  • Carlo Carrà

    Interventionist Demonstration, 1914

  • Ardengo Soffici

    BÏF§ZF+18, 1915

  • Giacomo Balla

  • Lacerba journal

    Florence, 1913–1915

  • Marinetti & Tullio d'Albisola, lithographed tin book

    1932

03

Make something in this style

Say what you need, and Stylogeny’s image studio draws it from Italian Futurism’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 styleItalian Futurism1909–1944 · Southern 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. Johanna Drucker, The Visible Word: Experimental Typography and Modern Art, 1909–1923 (1994)
  2. Vivien Greene (ed.), Italian Futurism, 1909–1944: Reconstructing the Universe (Guggenheim Museum, 2014)
  3. Philip B. Meggs & Alston W. Purvis, Meggs' History of Graphic Design

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