Architecture & Typography: A Brutalist Affair
Raw, geometrically shaped letters constitute one of the most interesting graphic design trends of the past few years, with the influence of brutalist architecture being observable, for instance, in website typography. Which Polish designers derive their inspiration from urban spaces?
Geometry has been present in lettering for ages. The world’s first Cyrillic type was cast around the year 1490 in Kraków. Its likely author, Ludolf Borsdorff, drew inspiration from manuscripts written in Russian semi-uncial script (with perpendicular letters) with the added elements of the Italian Antiqua (also known as Roman script, characterised by straight letters with slightly curved shapes). Chaim, the first modern Hebrew typeface, with rough-hewn, geometrical lines, was invented in Warsaw during the interwar period. Designed by Jan Lewitt, it is found to this day on Israeli streets, signboards, and in obituaries. A corresponding modernised version was designed 90 years later by Zofia Janina Borysiewicz, whose Aviva, geometrical and devoid of ornamentation, fits perfectly into contemporary typographic trends.
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Flashcards for Centrum Kultury Jidysz designed by Studio Eter, Aviva typeface designed by Zofia Janina Borysiewicz, photo: Centrum Kultury Jidysz
Adolf Loos, an Austrian architect and a forerunner of modernism, used to say that ornamentation was a crime. Raw forms and sharp lines have gained traction in lettering as well. Geometrical sans serif typefaces attract attention, highlighting key content. By dint of being bold, they are perfectly suited for headings, advertising titles and posters. Typographers usually draw from the tradition of the Polish avant-garde and Russian constructivism, but they also derive inspiration from the not-quite-comprehensible architectural style that is brutalism. Below we present several examples of contemporary Polish typographic projects executed according to these premises.
Concrete covers
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‘Ilustrowany atlas architektury brutalistycznej w Polsce’ by Paulina Adamowska, 2019/2020, cover made of concrete, inside of book printed on eco-friendly Crush Corn paper, photo: Paulina Adamowska / STGU
A chunky, at times illegible and certainly eye-catching font; thinner, straight lines balance bulging, sometimes curvy letter shapes – these are ideally suited to be used for headings. The font, created specifically for the book Ilustrowany atlas architektury brutalistycznej w Polsce (Illustrated Atlas of Brutalist Architecture in Poland), is described by its designer, Paulina Adamowska:
With its thin lines, it suggests brutalist architecture’s metal constructions, which contrast with heavy, chunky geometrical shapes. It’s got as many as 35 types, making it possible to create all kinds of compositions. It begins with thin, narrow letters and ends with thick, wide ones.
Publikacja powstała w 2020 roku w ramach dyplomu magisterskiego na Akademii Sztuk Pięknych im. Władysława Strzemińskiego w Łodzi. Adamowska wybrała pięć budynków w Polsce, które jej zdaniem najlepiej wpisują się w nurt brutalizmu. Jak mówiła w "Architekturze i biznesie", impulsem do rozpoczęcia prac nad projektem był niedziałający już Hotel Forum, w którego wnętrzach urządzono kulinarno-kulturalne miejsce na mapie Krakowa. Hotel Forum – obok m.in.
The publication was designed in 2020 as a master’s degree project at the Władysław Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. Adamowska chose five Polish buildings which, according to her, were most in line with the premises of brutalism. As she stated on the website Architektura i Biznes (Architecture and Business), what gave her the impulse to undertake her work on the project was the currently inoperative Forum Hotel, whose interior has been adapted for a cultural-culinary space on the map of Kraków. Alongside, for instance, Olivia Hall in Gdańsk and Spodek in Katowice, the Forum Hotel is one of the buildings discussed in Adamowska’s book. Each of them has been presented in the form of illustrations, some of which can also work as separate posters. After all, illustrations based on geometrical shapes are the artist’s main preoccupation, although her projects include all kinds of designs, even hand-made carpets with abstract patterns. Her works draw from the 20th-century avant-garde, proving at the same time that simplicity is timeless.
Adamowska’s illustrated atlas is not only an overview of the most interesting developments in late modernist architecture; it also constitutes an artistic response to brutalism, which the book evokes through its form and content alike. In addition to the photographs, drawings, typography and the overall graphic design inspired by raw structures, the publication boasts a cover made of concrete. The whole appears extraordinarily attractive and certainly encourages one to discover the world of brutalism, which sparks all kinds of extreme emotions.
A not necessarily primitive typeface
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Prymityv typeface designed by Małgorzata Bartosik, photo: Typoteka – Indeks polskich krojów pisma / https://typoteka.pl
If one could carve letters out of concrete blocks of flats, they would look exactly like the Prymityv typeface by Małgorzata Bartosik. Indeed, on Typoteka, an index of typefaces by Polish designers, we read that ‘it gives the impression of being made of concrete, reminiscent of Soviet monuments and other elements of the former Soviet Union’s urban space’. Russian constructivism, which gained traction in visual arts and architecture in the 1920s, was based on simplicity, geometric lines and shapes derived from futurism and cubism. It quickly took over lettering, too, with Aleksandr Rodchenko being one of the designers who worked in this expansive style. His new form of communication was characterised by raw forms and bold, sans serif typefaces.
A similar kind of rough, heavy form can be seen in the typography created by Bartosik in 2020. The designer has perfectly conveyed the overwhelming atmosphere of overcrowded apartment blocks. The chunky letters and numbers create the impression of suffocation, with only a small amount of white space – a typographic term referring to the empty spaces between the elements of text – resembling narrow windowpanes allowing one to take a breath. Despite the cramped structure, the signs retain a minimum of legibility. Prymityv, including both the Latin alphabet with European diacritics and the Cyrillic script, is therefore suitable for display advertisements, whose aim is to attract the attention of viewers and persuade them to undertake a particular action. Minimalism and modernism, as well as analogue design techniques (screen printing, collage, lino print), are of central interest to Bartosik, who completed her degree in graphic design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. She is the author of several more typographic projects, such as Bohemaz, inspired by Art Deco; Solanum, combining a vintage style with a contemporary one; and Milky Bar, for which menu boards in Warsaw’s milk bars served as a prototype.
The art of the font
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Berlewi FA typeface designed by Artur Frankowski, photo: Typoteka – Indeks polskich krojów pisma / https://typoteka.pl
Meanwhile, the graphic-design duo Fontarte draws creatively from the heritage of the Polish avant-garde. In 2006, Artur Frankowski designed the Berlewi FA typeface, using Henryk Berlewi’s template letters as a prototype. For a long time now, the figure of this forerunner of contemporary typography, a painter and the author of the theory of mechano-facture has been of interest for designers, who have come to believe that functional graphic design has been pretty much absent from the Polish art discourse. As Magdalena Frankowska explains on the pages of Dwutygodnik (The Biweekly):
This is one of the reasons we’ve written the first book on the works of Henryk Berlewi, in which we highlight his achievements in the field of applied typography. We present Polish and Jewish project implementations simultaneously, without separating them as was done in previous essays on Berlewi’s work.
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Mobie FA typeface designed by Magdalena Frankowska, photo: Typoteka – Indeks polskich krojów pisma / https://typoteka.pl
The Latin script of Berlewi FA is just as dynamic as the innovative composition of Berlewi’s 1924 posters. The thick, boldly drawn lines don’t connect, and their noticeable repetitiveness composes the text’s rhythmic layout. The typeface gives the impression of being mechanical and open at the same time. Meanwhile, the Szczuka FA typeface is characterised by closed letters with squared, sharply finished shapes. This project, finished in 2007, constituted Frankowski’s tribute to Mieczysław Szczuka and Teresa Żarnower – the co-founders (together with Henryk Berlewi, Katarzyna Kobro, and Władysław Strzemiński) of the avant-garde artist group called Blok (Block). As the artist himself admits, this chunky, durable typeface was inspired by literature, and specifically by Żarnower’s cover designs for Anatol Stern and Mieczysław Szczuka’s poetry volume titled Europa (Europe) and for the Obrona Warszawy (Defense of Warsaw) publishing house. Magdalena Frankowska’s decorative Mobie FA typeface is visually closer to block architecture and perfectly suited for posters and prominent headings.
Large-panel building
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Cement typeface designed by Edgar Bąk, photo: Typoteka – Indeks polskich krojów pisma / https://typoteka.pl
Edgar Bąk’s trademark is simplicity. In conversation with Agata Szydłowska for the book Miliard Rzeczy Dookoła (A Billion Things All Round), he described his work method:
IWhat I’m interested in are situations in which I get to observe the process itself. Then, the form as such isn’t quite as important as, for instance, the language invented for the sake of constructing said form. It’s the kind of programming method in which you write the code which then does something on its own accord. I think I’ve succeeded in implementing projects which work like an equation whose sum isn’t fully dependent on me. I create the grammar and the forms, and the final shape emerges out of these on its own.
The graphic designer worked for two cultural magazines: the Warsaw-based WAW and the Katowice-based KTW. The lettering on the magazine covers evoked Polish cityscapes, dominated by large-panel apartment blocks and elements of pre-war modernism. It was out of this project that the Cement typeface emerged in 2014. The experimental font is visually close to the aesthetic of brutalism. These too-large letters signal a certain irony, which Bąk often reaches for in his works. A peculiar discontinuity or inconsistency in the drawing of the lines – clearly noticeable in the designs for the letters ‘C’ and ‘Q’ – calls to mind the history of Warsaw’s architecture. On the artist’s website, we read that the Cement typeface ‘favours the unexpected over repetition’.
Urban stuffed shirts
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Nielot typeface designed by Maciej Połczyński, photo: Typoteka – Indeks polskich krojów pisma / https://typoteka.pl
While designing letters, he makes sure he lets himself be guided by intuition and the logic of the eye rather than by numbers and proportions. His first typeface, Cyrulik, was inspired by Warsaw’s typographic legacy. He believes error to be one of the key elements in the development of each discipline within the visual arts. This is why the names of Maciej Połczyński’s typeface designs frequently reflect human flaws, e.g. Obibok (Slacker), Maruder (Loiterer), Nieuk (Dunce); whereas Nielot (Flightless) from 2018, ‘carved with a heavy hand’, is – according to the author himself – ‘a stuffed shirt available in three variants: Backslant, Regular and Slant’. Its straight, angular lines, which give one the impression of order and rigour, are pure Russian constructivism. Raw geometry, although this time in a more refined shape, is also to be found in the Blef typeface from 2020. Połczyński runs the Warsaw-based type foundry Laïc: Type, a design studio that dissociates itself from corporate thinking and instead remains oriented towards independent functioning and affordable prices.
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Zakład typeface designed by Szymon Sznajder, photo: Typoteka – Indeks polskich krojów pisma / https://typoteka.pl
The urban space constitutes a source (though not the only one) of ideas for Szymon Sznajder as well. A typeface and book designer from Poznań, where he runs an independent design studio, in 2020 he created Shelf – a modest, sans serif typeface inspired by the landscape of the ice shelf. Four years prior, as part of the project Warszawskie Kroje (Warsaw Typefaces), he designed a typeface named Zakład. On his studio’s website typolis.pl, he explains:
Zakład is an experimental typeface designed in such a way that it works well on signboards and posters promoting various cultural events. Its chunky construction and the bold, robust drawings inspired by the hand-painted lettering of artisanal business signboards make its visual form prominent and unique.
Indeed, these brawny, geometrical letters simply cannot be overlooked.
Sources:
Patrycja Mazurek, Wpływ rosyjskiego konstruktywizmu na plakat polski w dwudziestoleciu międzywojennym, Wrocław 2015, www.akademia.edu (accessed 21.02.2022)
Agata Szydłowska, Miliard Rzeczy Dookoła, Kraków 2013
typoteka.pl
projektroku.pl
typolis.pl
dwutygodnik.com
eyeondesign.aiga.org
Written in Polish by Agnieszka Warnke, 22 February 2022
Translated by Anna Potoczny
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