Fortunato Depero was an italian Futurist painter,

sculptor, writer, stage designer, illustrator and graphic

designer during the years of 1913-1950. “Born March

30, 1892 in Fondo,Italy. He attended The Scuola Reale

Elisabettiana in Rovereto and in 1913 he settled in

Rome where he became an active member of The

Futurist Movement.”1 Where he met two artists,

Giacamo Balla and Tommaso Marenetti with whom he

published the manifesto Futurist Reconstruction of the

Universe in 1915. After meeting these two artists in

the Futurist Movement his work changed enormously,

and became much more abstract by following their

techniques. As he assimilated Boccioni’s visual

dynamism and Balla’s sense of tension arising from

the abstraction of forms. In the spring of 1915 Depero

was admitted into the Futurist movement. During the

World War I Depero had begun to write poetry in

Onomalingua which was a language he created, by

using abstract letter forms. Depero at this time also

created drafts for Futurist visonary architecture.

FORTUNATODEPERO

ARCHITECTURE

FUTURISTA

DECORATORE

PROPAGANDATECHNOLOGYNEWSPAPERMOVEMENTMARENETTIINDUSTRY

FASCISMPAINTINGSABSTRACT

ANGLESBALLA

MANI

FEST

O

LINE

SPEE

DAN

GLES

GEOM

ETRY

LAND

SCAP

ETY

PEOG

RAPH

YAD

VERT

ISEME

NTST

RUCT

URE

DESIG

NSP

ACE

ASYM

ETRY

CONS

TRUC

TS

COLORAPPARELTEXTILES

CLOTHINGTAPESTRY

PAINTINGSCOSTUMESFURNITURE

CURTIANSBRANDNAME

PRODUCTSOBJECTS

SKILLSILLUSTRATE

POETITALIANDECIPLEDRAWERPAINTERWRITERFUTURISTSCULPTORCRAFTSMANENTHUSIASTGRAPHIC DESIGNERHANDWRITE LETTER

ACHITE

CTURET

URAL TY

PE

INDUSTRIAL

DESIGNERS

SPEED & TECHNOLOGY

Known

best f

or h

is typ

ogra

phic

work

done

in th

e ea

rly 1

916’s

thre

e dim

ensio

nal le

tters.

Thes

e als

o cre

ated

a d

iffere

nt

dimen

son o

f typ

ogra

phy.

Futurism was fast, ex-

pressive, influencial to

artists and abstract to

viewers.

The B

eginn

ing o

f adve

rtise

ment,

and th

e importa

nce o

f imag

e

to co

nsum

ers.

How a pro

duct

looked.

FFuturism was a movement within italy that addressed many new ideas. It was historicaly known as an artistic and social movement that went on during the 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth and violence and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city in many different forms of art. Some of the Futurist artist made sculptures that depicted theses theories or made paintings that ephasized more qualities than the other. Depero began his work within the movement and created many typographic layouts and advertisements for the Futurist when he began in 1913. The forms he created using angles and type proved to be very tactical and effective pieces of work.

Thes

e pi

eces

that

dep

ero

crea

ted

wer

e hi

s fir

st e

xper

imen

ts w

ith im

age

and

type

ogra

phy.

The

se w

ere

prod

uced

dur

ing

1913

ont

o 19

15

Theater

By Giacam

o Balla. This was an

advertisement he created using directional

type and line. Published in 1910

The Futurist at the time recruited many artists, Depero who joined, started to work with Marenetti and Giacamo. Soon they decided to collaborate and make the book La Reconstruccio Futurista de l’univers (The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe) which was in 1915. In the beginning of the early 20’s after the collaboration depero began creating his own forms of typeography that were heavily inspired by Giacamo and Maranetti’s pervious works. One of the first pieces he created after the collaboration was the futurism advertisement series. Created in the early 20’s most of the typeographic pieces he created after, resembled much of Balla and Marenetti.

Collaboration

This Image w

as part of Depero’s

Advertisement Series for Futurist propaganda, done in 1914.

Image aquired by M

oMA (M

useum of M

odern Art.

In 1916 Depero was commissioned by a man named Sergej Diaghilev to work on costumes for his plays. “Diaghilev commissioned him to create Futurist scenery and costumes for Stravinsky’s ballet, Song of the Nightin-gale. Depero set to work conjuring an entire geometric landscape, including costumes that were ‘rigidly stylized and violently colored,’ in his description, with the arms cylindrical, and the heads in compartments.”2 In the end the play never showed, but Depero decid-ed to continue to work in this direction until 1920, designing textiles and as time went on he began to work with actual fabrics, and tapestry.

These drawings to the right w

ere the first sketches of Depero Theater C

ostumes. These sketches

turned into solid blocks of color in human figures - to depict the concept of color and form

. Found in both im

ages provided, created in 1916.

The Coverr of La Reconstruccio Futurista de L’universe

published in the year 1915 - by Depero, M

arinetti & Balla

Mad

e in

191

2 w

as F

illip

o M

arin

etti’

s m

ost w

ellk

-

now

n pi

ece

of ty

peog

raph

y. Th

e di

rect

iona

l typ

e

he d

esig

ned

was

a F

utur

ist s

ymbo

l for

spe

ed a

nd

tech

nolo

gica

l adv

ance

men

ts.

After the commission, Depero continued to create new designs and in late 1921 he produced

the famous Avant Garde vests known as “Futurist Vests.” These vests that he created had

geometric shapes, made from spanish fabrics. He first painted the subject and later had

his work reproduced twice as large by a draftsman. This enlargement of his design was

then cut out and copied onto a fabric of his choice. When Depero designed costumes and

began to sketch figures he used an abstract method where blocks of color and geometric

shapes took figure form. That process infact influenced his future graphic work companies

like Campari and San Pellegrino. These drawings also contributed his development of forms

and composition in these vests. “These vests were presented to the public in the year 1924,

during the tour New Futurist Theater along with Marinetti’s work, flaunting their colorful

clothes inspired by the Avant-Garde.” 2

Apparel

Thes

e w

ere

pain

tings

he

had

done

in 1

919

to s

tyliz

e an

d fin

ish

the

conc

epts

of t

he d

raw

ings

and

ske

tche

s he

mad

e. T

he in

tres

ting

part

of t

hese

pai

ntin

gs,

is th

ere

is a

n ab

stra

ct h

uman

figu

re th

at is

cre

ated

usi

ng m

any

geom

etric

sha

pes

and

satu

rdat

ed v

ibra

nt c

olor

s.

Texti

les

“In 1919 he founded the Casa d'Arte Futurista in Rovereto Italy, where he produced furniture, objects, graphics, posters and tapestries.”1 After returning back to italy from paris in 1920 he began to create cushions and furniture sets for personal use. Many of the pieces created were made from his Futurism drawings and paintings - into actual functional items like tables, chairs, pillows, and tapestries used as decor. In relation to his textiles, many of his furniture pieces like this one relate to the geometric shapes found in his fabric pieces. The relationships between the textiles and the structural items he made were very similar in conent because all of the forms correlate very well. In 1925 Depero created a politically controversial tapestry that was done in favor of fascism, made in support of Marinetti and his ideas, this was also considered to be one of Depero’s greatest pieces of war propaganda .

Created by Fortunato D

epero called The Remida 9250 Stool. M

ade with a in-w

ax-polished bleached m

aple frame. The seat m

ade with cow

hide inserts in green, yellow, blue, pink and red to reporduce the

original geometric design.

Text

iles

crea

ted

by F

ortu

nato

Dep

ero,

mad

e to

enh

ane

his

prev

ious

illu

stra

tion

of th

e fig

ure

usin

g fa

bric

s an

d ta

pest

ry.

Cus

hion

pie

ces

mad

e in

192

0.

Architecture“During the 1920s Depero

spent some months in Paris, where he showed in the Italian pavilion of the Exposition Internationale des Arts

Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes, with Balla and Prampolini. Depero experimented with built structures designed out of letters, this is what he termed Typographical or Advertising Architecture.”1 The proccess of creating a new kind of design. He made a series of works that were famously known as Advertisement Architecture which really elaborated on the structural elements of type and letter forms. In this series he also created the illusion of what figure size would be in relation to these monuments he created. As a Futurist Artist this concept related strongly to his ideas of technology and machine in relation to his type designs. He created many drafts and presented intresting connections between letters and actual Three Dimensonal space, by using people and photography. Depero also continued to carry the Architecture Advertisements into the early 1930’s when he

worked at Campari.

Advertisment

Depero produced this tapestry in 1925, as a facist form

of propa-ganda. “A

gleefully gruesome tapestry, W

ar=Festival. D

epero’s tapestry featured soldiers slaughtering one another against a backdrop resem

bling a jubilant pyrotechnic display.”2

This

imag

e w

as o

ne o

f Dep

ero’

s la

te s

ketc

hes

of a

type

mon

umen

t don

e in

19

27. H

e na

med

this

Pad

igio

ne D

el L

ibro

Tre

ves

Tum

min

ell D

e D

eper

o Th

e Im

age

abov

e is

of t

he h

andm

ade

phyi

scal

str

uctu

re c

reat

ed b

y D

eper

o.

In 1927 Depero created his portfolio of work, which happened to be

an 80 page booklet which he made to present as a professional kind of business card to American

advertising companies. The book was named Depero Futurista and the book itself was very unique,

in the fact that there was no traditional binding nor typography that a normal book would have had at

that time. The book he created had two bolts attached on the side to bind the pages to emphasize the

industrialization of the book, which was the first of its kind. “Depero used no respect for the traditional rules

of layout, and instead used multi-colored text in new rather than traditional typefaces. The text was printed

on different kinds of paper in various type sizes and widths, making the text suddenly become image.”4 The

book included some of his early works at Campari and some of his typographic works along with image

advertisements he had made for himself.

These pieces were apart of Fortunato D

epero’s book portfolio. The pieces he chose, showed a variety of typeography skills and structural im

ages. He included

some pieces from

the beginning of his Futurism art in 1913 and he included C

ampari advertisem

ent pieces made in 1925 to show

a range of design development

Futurista

Art of Advertisement

Vanity Fair series of magazine covers created by Fortunato Depero in the year 1930, have very abstract figures and geometric shapes to emphasize colors and futurist concepts.

These Images are also covers from other advertising companies that Fortunato Depero had worked for during his time in New York. He also did many ads for small companies like Caffe Ciro and Macy’s. These covers were designed in 1930.

In 1928 Depero had moved to New York in search of advertising jobs. When he arrived he was hired by many

publishing companies such as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. Depero believed in the construction of creation by using modern

machinery, and as a futurist his work elaborated on these topics of industrialization, speed, and geometry. He used many different forms

of technology like lithography, zinc plates, use of multiple types of paper typewriters and printing presses. As he designed for companies

within the United states throughout the early 1930’s the covers he designed were very simplistic but the type he used was very intentional.

“Depero arranged words in a way that would enhance their meaning. The strength was in the simplicity.”4 Many of his covers for magazines emphasized

structure, space, and color. His work continued to resemble that of futurist contents throughout his graphic design career within the united states and back

in Italy after 1932.

Depero continued these kinds of covers with the figure as a prominent feature of the magazine. The angles and the hand lettering make these pieces very individual from another. Covers designed in 1923

One

of D

erpe

ro’s

first

ske

tche

s of

the

New

Yor

k ci

ty S

cene

ary

whi

ch h

e co

nstr

ucte

d w

ith ty

pe in

stea

d of

imag

e. M

ade

1929

These covers Depero created were the most known magazine covers he did for Vogue. The abstract letters forming a monument and addressing the hirearchial color scheme of each cover - by using a limited by impactful pallet. Covers designed in 1932.

When he returned to italy in the 1932 De-

pero eventually began working on a series

of advertisements fo

r Campari Aperitif, not

only did he design their posters but he also

created the product design for the Cam-

pari bottle. Depero eventually designed

Campari’s entire image, by compsing an

aray of different advertisements, lo

gos and

product designs he was ultimately Campari’s

executive art director. A lot of the posters

and advertisements he created relate to his

futuristic style of compositon angles and

geometric shapes from his previous works.

Depero also created many drafts of his work

while working with Campari from 1932 to

1933, and the work he made resembles that

of his previous works made in 1920.

Works m

ade in 1933, Most of these im

ages are advertisements that depero had w

orked on for Cam

pari Aperitif. A

fter he

working on posters he m

oved onto sculptural work. The im

age on the bottom right is one of D

eperos sculptures of an ab-

stract figure using Cam

pari. Depero w

as conceptual in his material and designed effective w

ork for clients and companies.

While back in Italy he worked for many advertising companies, publishers, and newspapers, he worked for Campari Aperitif in Italy during the 1930’s and continued to work as a freelance graphic designer for the next 20 years of his life. He continued to work in the world of graphic design and advertisement because he truly believed it was going to be the next form of art making. During the years leading up to his death, in 1957 Depero at the time was the eldest of all Futurism Artists, so he had started a project for the Futurism museum. Even Though this contradicted Futurism theory of museums, Depero believed it would benefit many other artists if he created a place where all their work was. The museum opened in 1958, and Fortunato Depero Died November 29, 1960 in Rovereto Italy.

“The art of the future will be advertising.” — Fortunato Depero

Croped im

age is part of a painting done by

Fortunato Depero of N

ew York C

ity structures

CHELSEAALEXANDER

4.

1.

2.

Group, Hangar Design. “Guggenheim.” Guggenheim. Peggy Guggenheim, n.d. Web.

06 Dec. 2015.

3.

“Design History Mashup: Fortunato Depero’s Role in Typographic Expansion.” Design History Mashup: Fortunato Depero’s Role in Typographic Expansion. N.p., 1 Apr. 2008. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.

“Balli Plastici, Fortunato Depero’s Futurist Puppetry Ballet, Reimagined for the Digital Age.” Depero Futuristi. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Dec. 2015.

Keats, Jonathon. “Fortunato Depero’s Italian Futurism.” Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 06 Dec. 2015.

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