Futurism - Graphic Design

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Zang Tumb Tumb, 1914. Cover by the author.

 Reinvention of Forms

With the publication of the sound poem Zang Tumb Tuuum (1912), a graphic account of the Battle of Tripoli, by the poet-artist Marinetti, the modern visual communication was born. Marinetti's typographical innovations, within the parameters of graphic design, introduced a powerful technique for representation of the clamorous hum-drum of modern life, which used expressive typography with poetic impressions to illustrate the repetition of the drumbeat of war. He dubbed his technique “multilinear lyricism, ” which with great ingenuity and visual imagination composed the type of varying sizes into split columns, horizontal and vertical elements, integrated at right angles to each other, with fragmented words into letters which amplified the onomatopoeic effect. He wrote:

The book will be the futurists expression of our futurist consciousness. I am against what is known as the harmony of a setting. When necessary, we shall use three or four columns to a page and twenty different typefaces . We shall represent hasty perceptions in italic and express a scream in bold types... a new painterly, typographic representation will born out of the printed pages.

The graphic technique and formal composition of this work became remarkably influential in modernist print and the emerging culture of the European Avant-garde.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Palabras en libertad.

    Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, "Irredentismo", 1914

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Futurist words-in-freedom, 1915

Reinvention of Forms

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Les Mots En Liberte Futuristes, 1919.

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, from poemDUNE, parole in liberta, 1914.
Marinetti created a multisensory experience by using a creative and daring typography in an unconventional layout, that had a lasting impact on graphic design.

References:    Design History Mashup: Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Designer.
                                                         [ONLINE] Available at: http://designhistorymashup.blogspot.com/2008/04/filippo
tommaso-marinetti-designer.html.
[Accessed 25 January 2014].

Zang Tumb Tuum video -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1Yld7

  Filippo Tommaso Marinetti | GRAPHIC ICONS.
                                                 [ONLINE] Available at: http://graphiciconsbook.com/filippo-tommaso-marinetti/.
[Accessed 25 January 2014].

                                                 The History of Visual Communication - The Avantgarde.

                                                [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/avantgarde.html.                                                           [Accessed 25 January 2014].