Brutalism has its origins in early 1940s architecture. It started out as a concept of creating large bold blocky structures using simple shapes and patterns consisting mostly of concrete, hence the names origin beton brut (raw concrete). It was born out of the post war era with the vision of a utopian future. A world where everyone could live a joyful life with the huge concrete masterpieces as their home.
So, in its core Brutalism comes from an optimistic positive philosophy which is opposite to popular belief and association if you ask me. When I first was exposed to Brutalism I associated it with a dystopian and destructive energy. In hindsight this was probably me misinterpreting the raw aspect of brutalism. The raw energy is more powerful in the way that it can be perceived both in a positive and a negative light depending on its adaptation and context. Which is one of the reasons I like this aesthetic so much, its versatility.
As brutalism started out in the architecture it’s interesting to see how it has translated into other industries. The core concept of brutalism is to use fundamental pieces to create bold Avant Garde creations. A fairly easy mindset to adapt, thought provoking to explore and challenging to utilize in production of a satisfying product.
The most recent and one of the most interesting adaptations comes straight from the London College of Fashion’s MA Degree show. Inflatable latex pants. Designer Harikrishnan describes how he designed the pants with perspective in mind in his interview with ID. Harikrishnan wanted to reimagine how one perceives shapes from different points of perspective and distortions such as from a fisheye effect. This concept can be interpreted as brutalism in the way that the design revolves around something as fundamental as perspective in clothing and makes it the main point of focus in the design. This concept is new thinking, refreshing and certainly opens new doors for derivative projects. We love to see it.
A trend that’s been around for quite a while is transparent bags. It redirects the focus from what usually is the main point of the design - the bag material, pattern, texture and structure. Instead it allows for other aspects to be the center of attention such as the bag strap, the bag silhouette, buttons or simply the bag contents. The most interesting dynamic here is the possibility to make a statement simply with what is in the bag. But also, the possibility to put emphasis on other aspects such as the strap as seen in this example. The brutalist concept here is letting other core elements of a bag be the center of attention.
The trend of transparent bags is an older one but most certainly an interesting example of brutalism. Making the bag transparent allows for less attention grabbing aspects of the bag to be the center of attention. In this picture a completely brandless transparent bag lets the contents of the bag be the visual statement. Almost removing the bag itself from the design. The one aspect that remains is not even the shape of the bag but merely the silhouette. A powerful aesthetic in my eyes.
An extra sole glued to the bottom to a pair of Nike air force ones. Basing a design out of a basic part of its medium, that’s brutalism. The glue being a part of the look adds to the brutalist aesthetic. This is because glue is one building pieces of assembling a shoe, something that normally is hidden from the viewer. An additional Nike logo is a subtle detail that contributes to the look.
Brutalism design thinking is interesting in graphic design and print. Letting alignment, spacing and sizing be the main means of communicating an aesthetic makes for a minimalistic powerful impression. These aspects being fundamental design principles for layout makes it possible to view this design through the goggles of brutalism. Made by Dora Lazarević.
On the cover of Vegyns album Only Diamonds cut Diamonds we see the brutalist aesthetic in the form of graphic design. The lack of graphical content makes the presence of the few elements more attention grabbing. Two photos that feel somewhat oddly positioned are neither straight nor aligned. This play on imperfection is an excellent adaptation of the brutalist mindset. Moreover, letting an oval take up most of the attention in the bottom part of the image is an interesting way to fill up space and add character. The minimalism of the cover makes the bold letters spelling out Vegyn stand out on its own.
In this poster by 73x5 the font is a minimalistic non attention catching sans serif. The lack of other graphic content makes the visual weight created by the text positioning and sizing the main contributor to the aesthetic.
Positioning and sizing of the textual content in this poster by 73x5 pulls attention to the negative space and the weight of the visual content. The slight vertical cut off at the sizable “wash” adds an interesting dynamic and alignment to the padding of the posters' border.
Designer and freelancer Daniel Spatzek portfolio website UI & UX design is brutalism in web form. Spatzek lets the presence of typography be the main design element in his website. Layout wise he has limited himself to align content by 6 explicit vertical lines. Aligning content is nothing new and fundamental in UI design. But Spatzek chose to make these alignment lines explicitly visual, making the user more aware of their presence, almost making the alignment itself a core aspect of the design. This also acts as a guiding factor as the user easier can understand how content interacts with the lines. Moreover, Spatzek has been able to give the UX of the website a dash of brutalist philosophy. Making most of the content interact and animate on scroll Spatzek has been able to make something as fundamental as scrolling fun again. Being one of the fundamental ways to navigate on the web, successfully designing for scrolling is powerful when done non disruptively.
Brutalism in web design is not an easy endeavor. It very easily turns into something that is perceived as being under designed or just poorly made. In this example we have the use of old school 90s web design elements such as lines to create grids and the default code format tag font being the body text font. The modern bold heading font and qualitative images is what turns this website from a disaster to an interesting different web design with a lot of character.
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