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1. The Futurism Manifesto and Movement

Marinetti, along with a group of young Italian artists, declared their ambitions in opposition to the traditional values dominating Italian art and culture of the time and focused on the dynamism, speed, energy, and power of the machine and the vitality, change, and restlessness of modern life. Key ideas:

      • Motion, movement, technology, speed, dynamisim, unification of culture, industrialization, war, violence, machismo, extreme, distruction of the past, revolution.
      • Political leanings, initially fascism, anti-feminist, anti-democratic, but years later rejected those ideas to focus more on technological advancement, specifically aviation.
      • Here is the full manifesto.

Watch the three videos below to learn more about the key ideas that define Futurism and the lasting visual elements that resulted. Does anything in the visual or ideological aspects of this movement inspire or repulse you? Why? NOTE: In the following video, watch from 29:38 to 31:33

2. Constructivism

The Russian Revolution of 1917 offered hope for a new society in which workers would replace the aristocracy as the ruling class. The Constructivists, led by Aleksandr Rodchenko envisioned a new form of art that would replace traditional painting and sculpture with new forms of mass-produced graphics and engineered objects for the common citizen. Key Ideas:

      • Geometry, clear lines, abstracted shapes, photomontage, san serif fonts, bold primary palettes
      • Rejected decorative stylization in favor of the industrial assemblage of materials.
      • Applied these ideals to architecture, urban space, clothing, theatre, graphics and social activism.
      • Political leanings, intially Communism, artists/designers later emmigrated to USA.

MOMA – Russian Avant-Garde: https://youtu.be/uUSkidTIqSM

NOTE: In the video below, watch from 24:42 to 29:19
The Soviet Revolution – Graphic Design History (Watch from 24:42 to 29:19): https://youtu.be/OS8rZ8iwcJM

3  Influence on Contemporary Design

Futurism, Constructivism, and the avant-garde in general, as we shall continue to explore, had a profound impact on the evolution of graphic design, advertising, fashion, industrial design, architecture, theater, and more.

Born from the political and societal influences of the time, we can see how the concepts of universality, authorship, and social responsibility are present in manifestos we’ve read and most importantly WHY!

By now you can start to see how some of the graphic styles of these two movements that we’ve explored still linger in the design we see today.

As we explore the next step in our design lineage in writings from the Bauhaus, see if you can find the influences from the Futurist and Constructivist movements.

Check out How the Imagery of the Russian Revolution Married Ideology, Politics + Progressive Graphic Design by Emily Gosling, Eye on Design. May 1st, 2017

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