# Vorticism & BLAST Typography

> London's short-lived rival to Futurism, launched by Wyndham Lewis with BLAST (dated 20 June 1914; War Number, July 1915). Its manifesto pages shout lists to BLAST and BLESS in a heavy jobbing grotesque, in level lines of jumping sizes, staggered between vertical rules and boxed numerals. Some lists are centred like a playbill, and the jobbing printer William Henry Leveridge may have done some or all of the layout. The pictures are interlocking angular planes of machines, docks and cities, cut in wood or drawn for line blocks in flat black and white, beside halftone plates of paintings.

- Period: 1914–1920
- Where: Western Europe
- Origin: London: Wyndham Lewis's Rebel Art Centre (opened March 1914) and the magazine BLAST, published by John Lane at the Bodley Head and printed by Leveridge & Co., St Thomas' Road, Harlesden; the first Vorticist Exhibition opened at the Doré Galleries, New Bond Street, on 10 June 1915
- Branch: Avant-garde
- Also known as: Vorticism, The Great English Vortex, BLAST
- Page: https://stylogeny.com/styles/vorticism/

## How it works

- Shout in one heavy jobbing grotesque: set the manifesto in bold capitals from the printer's case (BLAST used Stephenson Blake's Grotesque No. 9), and get loudness from size and weight rather than from a riot of different faces.
- Write in lists of attack and praise: a huge BLAST, BLESS or CURSE as the heading, then the targets stacked beneath it, each line indented to its own position or centred in a block of names, held by vertical rules, underlines, short thick bars and boxed numerals.
- Jump sizes inside a single line, so the key words shout and the asides drop small (in BLAST, 'First' and 'from politeness' sit small between BLAST and ENGLAND), but keep every line level so the page stands as a solid, static block rather than a Futurist scatter.
- Save the diagonal for the cover and the picture: one tilted black title across a flat field of violent pink, or interlocking shards, wedges and machine parts that fill the whole frame.
- Reduce machines, ships, docks and crowds to hard-edged angular planes in flat black and white, cut in wood or reproduced from drawings as line blocks, with no floral or whiplash curves.
- Blast and bless the same target: keep the voice polemical, satirical and self-mocking, never sentimental.

## Its design choices

Defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

### Layout & composition
- [Dynamic asymmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/dynamic-asymmetry/) (characteristic)
- [Diagonal axis](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/diagonal-axis/) (characteristic)
- [Central symmetry](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/central-symmetry/) (occasional)
- [All-over field](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-over-field/) (occasional)
- [Framed panels](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/framed-panels/) (occasional)

### Space & hierarchy
- [Extreme scale contrast](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/extreme-scale-contrast/) (defining)
- [Visual tension](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/visual-tension/) (characteristic)
- [Repetition & rhythm](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/repetition-and-rhythm/) (characteristic)
- [Horror vacui](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/horror-vacui/) (characteristic)

### Typography
- [Grotesque & neo-grotesque](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/grotesque-and-neo-grotesque/) (defining)
- [All caps](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/all-caps/) (defining)
- [Type as image](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/type-as-image/) (characteristic)
- [Condensed display](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/condensed-display/) (characteristic)
- [Tight setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/tight-setting/) (characteristic)
- [Eclectic mixing](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/eclectic-mixing/) (occasional)
- [Rotated & vertical setting](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rotated-and-vertical-setting/) (occasional)
- [Hand-lettering](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-lettering/) (occasional)

### Colour
- [Monochrome](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/monochrome/) (defining)
- [Limited spot colours](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/limited-spot-colours/) (characteristic)
- [Flat fields](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat-fields/) (characteristic)
- [Light ground](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/light-ground/) (characteristic)

### Form & shape
- [Angular & zigzag](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/angular-and-zigzag/) (defining)
- [Non-representational](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/non-representational/) (characteristic)
- [Rectilinear](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rectilinear/) (characteristic)
- [Stylised figuration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/stylised-figuration/) (characteristic)
- [Optical pattern](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/optical-pattern/) (occasional)

### Surface & texture
- [Flat](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/flat/) (characteristic)
- [Carved line](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/carved-line/) (characteristic)
- [Halftone & Ben-Day dots](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/halftone-and-ben-day-dots/) (occasional)
- [Paper & letterpress bite](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/paper-and-letterpress-bite/) (occasional)

### Ornament
- [Rules & bars](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rules-and-bars/) (characteristic)
- [Ornament-free](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ornament-free/) (characteristic)

### Imagery
- [Typography only](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/typography-only/) (characteristic)
- [Line illustration](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/line-illustration/) (characteristic)

### Medium & production
- [Letterpress](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/letterpress/) (defining)
- [Woodblock & linocut](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/woodblock-and-linocut/) (characteristic)
- [Lithography](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/lithography/) (occasional)
- [Hand-painted](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/hand-painted/) (occasional)

### Tone & intent
- [Rebellious & subversive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/rebellious-and-subversive/) (defining)
- [Agitational & persuasive](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/agitational-and-persuasive/) (characteristic)
- [Ironic & self-aware](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/ironic-and-self-aware/) (characteristic)
- [Technological & futurist](https://stylogeny.com/design-choices/technological-and-futurist/) (characteristic)

Avoids: Floral & vegetal, Abundant decoration, Whiplash line, Ornamented display, Photomontage, Collage & layering, Utopian & idealistic, Romantic & sensual, Calm & contemplative

Palette: #efe9dc, #141414, #e2388f, #d8c29a, #e8b62c, #5b4486

Typefaces: Grotesque No. 9 (Stephenson Blake), the heavy jobbing grotesque of most of BLAST's manifesto pages, Latin Bold for the boxed section numerals of the manifesto, Unidentified heavy display capitals, possibly wood type, for the diagonal BLAST title and headings such as 'MANIFESTO.', Wyndham Lewis's hand-drawn block capitals on the War Number cover (BLAST, WAR NUMBER, JULY 1915)

Known for: BLAST no. 1, edited by Wyndham Lewis and dated 20 June 1914 (John Lane, The Bodley Head): the bright pink cover with the black title running diagonally from top left to bottom right, and the numbered BLAST, BLESS and CURSE manifesto pages, with their centred lists of names (pp. 21, 28) (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67.804.13(1)); BLAST no. 2, the War Number, July 1915: Lewis's cover design 'Before Antwerp' in black on buff, with line-block designs by Jessica Dismorr ('The Engine'), Frederick Etchells ('Progression'), Helen Saunders ('Atlantic City'), William Roberts ('Combat') and Edward Wadsworth ('War-Engine') (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 67.804.13(2)); Edward Wadsworth, 'Newcastle-on-Tyne', 1913, a woodcut of jagged, sawtooth white shapes on a black block, printed in BLAST no. 1, p. 29 (captioned 'Newcastle'; V&A, CIRC.252-1972; Met, 2019.592.298), and his colour woodcut 'Vorticist composition' in purple and yellow, c. 1918 (V&A, E.449-1965); Edward Wadsworth, 'Dazzle Ship in Dry Dock', woodcut, 1918 (V&A, E.3304-1980), and 'S.S. Jerseymoor', woodcut, 1918 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2019.592.26), from the wartime months he spent in Bristol and Liverpool on painted dazzle camouflage for ships; Wyndham Lewis, Timon of Athens portfolio (1913): 16 plates printed from relief plates made from high-contrast photographs of his drawings, a forerunner of Vorticist abstraction; one Timon design is reproduced among BLAST no. 1's plates (plate v) (Folger Shakespeare Library); Wyndham Lewis, 'Design for Programme Cover—Kermesse', reproduced in BLAST no. 2 (p. 75): a group of angular figures locked together in solid black and white, monogrammed 'WL 1912' on the plate (University of Victoria Special Collections); E. McKnight Kauffer, 'Soaring to Success! Daily Herald – the Early Bird', colour lithograph, 1918–19, for the paper's relaunch on 31 March 1919, based on his 1916 woodcut of birds and showing the strong influence of Vorticism (V&A, E.35-1973)

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

- Grew out of: [Italian Futurism](https://stylogeny.com/styles/futurism.md) (1909–1944)
- Influenced by: [Cubist Pictorial Space](https://stylogeny.com/styles/cubism.md) (1907–1925)
- Influenced by: [Victorian Letterpress & Wood Type](https://stylogeny.com/styles/victorian-letterpress.md) (1810–1900)
- Alike in its design choices: [Estridentismo (Stridentist) Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/estridentismo-graphics.md) (1921–1927), 72% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Brazilian Modernismo Graphics (Klaxon and the Semana de 22)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/brazilian-modernismo-graphics.md) (1922–1929), 68% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Di Tella Graphic Design (Instituto Torcuato Di Tella)](https://stylogeny.com/styles/di-tella-graphics.md) (1960–1970), 61% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Mavo](https://stylogeny.com/styles/mavo.md) (1923–1925), 57% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Expressionist Woodcut Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/expressionist-graphics.md) (1905–1925), 56% alike
- Alike in its design choices: [Extinction Rebellion Graphics](https://stylogeny.com/styles/extinction-rebellion-graphics.md) (2018–present), 54% alike

## Sources

- Tate, Art term 'Vorticism', https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/v/vorticism (founded by Lewis in London in 1914; Rebel Art Centre founded March 1914; BLAST, two issues, the first in June 1914; the only group exhibition in London in 1915; Cubist fragmentation combined with hard-edged imagery derived from the machine and the urban environment; a British counterpart to Futurism, with Lewis hostile to the Futurists; members including Atkinson, Dismorr, Hamilton, Roberts, Saunders, Wadsworth; ended by the war, briefly revived as Group X in 1920)
- Modernist Journals Project (Brown University and University of Tulsa), 'Blast', https://modjourn.org/journal/blast/ (editor Wyndham Lewis with the assistance of Ezra Pound; London: John Lane, the Bodley Head; no. 1 dated 20 June 1914, no. 2 dated July 1915 (catalogued as 1915-07-01); 'christened Vorticism by Pound and Lewis'; lists of blasts, blesses and curses); digitised issues bdr:430555 and bdr:430768 in the Brown Digital Repository, examined page by page for the layout (the boxed numerals and the centred 'BLESS ENGLAND !' page with short thick bars, p. 22; the centred BLAST and BLESS lists of names, pp. 21 and 28; the halftone plate of Wadsworth's 'Cape of Good Hope', printed sideways), the cover of no. 1, the War Number cover, and the War Number's list of designs (Lewis's 'Design for Programme Cover—Kermesse', p. 75) and imprint ('Printed by Leveridge and Co. (T.U.), St. Thomas' Road, Harlesden'); the repository's contents list for no. 1 (https://repository.library.brown.edu/api/items/bdr:430555/) places Wadsworth's 'Newcastle' on p. 29, 'Cape of Good Hope' on plate i and Lewis's 'Timon of Athens' on plate v; BLAST 1's opening 'Long Live the Vortex!' says 'We stand for the Reality of the Present—not for the sentimental Future, or the sacripant Past', 'We believe in no perfectibility except our own' and wants 'not a revival of lost folk art'
- Mark Morrisson, 'BLAST: An Introduction', Modernist Journals Project, https://modjourn.org/blast-an-introduction/ (Lewis turned to a commercial printing firm, Leveridge & Co., 'whose own advertising posters used diagonal text lines and striking layout and font choices'; readers 'immediately note the wide array of font sizes and type faces')
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, 'Blast, No. 1', 1914, letterpress with woodcuts and photographic reproductions, 31.2 × 24.7 cm, 67.804.13(1), https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/353218; 'Blast, No. 2', 1915, woodcut and photographic illustrations, 67.804.13(2), https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/371983 (records read through the Met's open-access collection API)
- Wikipedia, 'Blast (British magazine)', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blast_(British_magazine) (no. 1 dated 20 June 1914 but published on 2 July 1914 after a delay; bright pink cover with the oblique title; Pound's 'great MAGENTA cover'd opusculus')
- Tate, Chris Stephens, 'BLAST! The radical Vorticist Manifesto', https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/v/vorticism/blast-radical-vorticist-manifesto ('Blast France, Blast England, Blast Humour, Blast the years 1837 to 1900'; 'In one sentence the whole of the Victorian era is dismissed'; the editors blast and bless different things, 'often these are the same things'; a dramatic piece of graphic design on each page)
- University of Victoria Libraries, Special Collections, 'Movable Type': BLAST magazine, https://omeka.library.uvic.ca/exhibits/show/movable-type/the-book/blastmagazine1.html (set in Grotesque No. 9; cover 'a brilliant pink, described variably as fuchsia or puce'; 30 × 23 cm; rough text paper, glossier paper for the art plates)
- University of Victoria Libraries, Special Collections, 'BLAST 2: Design for Programme Cover- Kermesse', https://omeka.library.uvic.ca/items/show/1285.html (illustration by Wyndham Lewis in BLAST no. 2, July 1915)
- Fonts In Use, 'BLAST: Review of the Great English Vortex, No. 1', https://fontsinuse.com/uses/16012/blast-review-of-the-great-english-vortex-no-a (Grotesque No. 9 for most of the manifesto; Latin Bold for the framed numerals; title and some headings in unidentified, possibly wood, types; Caslon's Atlas for the advertisement 'THE EGOIST'; quotes Andrzej Gąsiorek and Nathan Waddell, Wyndham Lewis: A Critical Guide, that some or all of the design was probably done by William Henry Leveridge, head of Leveridge & Co., which printed both numbers, and that the BLAST/BLESS structure derives from Apollinaire's Futurist manifesto; Lewis's 'violent pink' cover)
- University of Otago, OUR Heritage, 'Blast 1 [June 20th, 1914]' (Black Sparrow Press facsimile, 1981), https://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/8404 (shocking pink cover; title in large black capitals set diagonally from top left to bottom right; Pound's 'great MAGENTA cover'd opusculus')
- Tate Etc., 'Women that a movement forgot' (issue 22, summer 2011), https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-22-summer-2011/women-movement-forgot (Saunders and Dismorr signed the manifesto in BLAST I, contributed to BLAST II and showed at the Doré Galleries in 1915; Saunders's hard-edged geometry, jagged diagonals, zigzags and strong, unexpected colour)
- Tate Etc., 'Drawing the vortex' (issue 22, summer 2011), https://www.tate.org.uk/tate-etc/issue-22-summer-2011/drawing-vortex (the Vorticists' exhibition opened at the Doré Galleries, New Bond Street, on 10 June 1915; BLAST's publication was announced in The Egoist from April 1914, BLAST 1 finally appeared in early July, and it carried a prominent advertisement for The Egoist in its manifesto style)
- Victoria and Albert Museum, Edward Wadsworth, 'Newcastle-on-Tyne', woodcut, made 1913, CIRC.252-1972, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1105791/ (reproduced on page 29 of the first issue of Blast; 'The sawteeth evoke impressions of machinery'); Metropolitan Museum of Art, Edward Wadsworth, 'Newcastle', 1913, woodcut on colored paper, 2019.592.298, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/835659 (record read through the Met's open-access collection API)
- Victoria and Albert Museum, Edward Wadsworth, 'Vorticist composition', colour woodcut in purple and yellow, c. 1918, E.449-1965, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O696894/ (about 50 woodcuts made mainly in 1913–1921; the Royal Navy used his design skills for dazzle camouflage with bold diagonal patterns and zigzag bands); 'Dazzle Ship in Dry Dock', woodcut, 1918, E.3304-1980, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O549542/ (one of a group of prints from the wartime months Wadsworth and fellow artists spent in Bristol and Liverpool pioneering painted camouflage for warships)
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, Edward Wadsworth, 'S.S. Jerseymoor', woodcut, 1918, 2019.592.26, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/834177 (record read through the Met's open-access collection API)
- Victoria and Albert Museum, E. McKnight Kauffer, 'Soaring to Success! - The Early Bird', colour lithograph, 1918–19, printed by T. B. Lawrence Ltd, E.35-1973, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O85159/ (advertises the relaunch of the Daily Herald on 31 March 1919; based on a woodcut made by Kauffer in 1916; shows the strong influence of the English Vorticist style)
- Victoria and Albert Museum, Peter Saville Associates, OMD, 'Dazzle Ships', 1983, E.2283-1990, https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O191227/ ('references the art of Edward Wadsworth (1889-1949) who used dazzle camouflage patterns on ships'; inner and die-cut outer sleeves)
- Tate, Art term 'Group X', https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/g/group-x (formed by Lewis in 1920 to revive the pre-war Vorticist circle; Roberts, Hamilton and McKnight Kauffer named among the artists linked with it)
- Folger Shakespeare Library, The Collation, 'Timon of Athens: nine not-actually-lost drawings by Wyndham Lewis', https://www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/timon-of-athens-nine-not-actually-lost-drawings-by-wyndham-lewis/ (portfolio published in 1913 with 16 plates, some printed in colours; relief plates made from high-contrast photographs of the drawings; cites Paul Edwards on the portfolio and the emergence of Vorticist abstraction)

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