Designed to represent a futurist artist known as Fortunato Depero.

1. 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.
FORTUNATO
DEPEROARCHITECTURE
FUTURISTA
DECORATORE
PROPAGANDA
TECHNOLOGY
NEWSPAPER
MOVEMENT
MARENETTI
INDUSTRY
FASCISM
PAINTINGS
ABSTRACT
ANGLES
BALLA
MANIFESTO
LINE
SPEED
ANGLES
GEOMETRY
LANDSCAPE
TYPEOGRAPHY
ADVERTISEMENT
STRUCTURE
DESIGN
SPACE
ASYMETRY
CONSTRUCTS
COLOR
APPAREL
TEXTILES
CLOTHING
TAPESTRY
PAINTINGS
COSTUMES
FURNITURE
CURTIANS
BRANDNAME
PRODUCTS
OBJECTS
SKILLS
ILLUSTRATE
POET
ITALIAN
DECIPLE
DRAWER
PAINTER
WRITER
FUTURIST
SCULPTOR
CRAFTSMAN
ENTHUSIAST
GRAPHIC DESIGNER
HANDWRITE LETTER
ACHITECTURETURALTYPE
INDUSTRIALDESIGNERS
SPEED&
TECHNOLOGY
Known
bestforhis
typographic
work
done
in
the
early
1916’s
three
dim
ensionalletters.
These
also
created
a
different
dim
enson
oftypography.
Futurism
w
as
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ex-
pressive,
influencial
to
artists
and
abstract
to
view
ers.
The
Beginning
ofadvertisem
ent,
and
the
im
portance
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age
to
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ers.H
ow
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looked.

2. F
Futurism 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.
Thesepiecesthatdeperocreatedwerehisfirstexperimentswithimageandtypeography.Thesewereproducedduring1913onto1915
Theater
ByGiacamoBalla.Thiswasan
advertisementhecreatedusingdirectional
typeandline.Publishedin1910
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
ThisImagewaspartofDepero’s
AdvertisementSeriesforFuturistpropaganda,donein1914.
ImageaquiredbyMoMA(Museum
ofModernArt.
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.
ThesedrawingstotherightwerethefirstsketchesofDeperoTheaterCostumes.Thesesketches
turnedintosolidblocksofcolorinhumanfigures-todepicttheconceptofcolorandform.Found
inbothimagesprovided,createdin1916.
TheCoverrofLaReconstruccioFuturistadeL’universe
publishedintheyear1915-byDepero,Marinetti&Balla
Madein1912wasFillipoMarinetti’s
mostwellk-
nownpieceoftypeography.Thedirectionaltype
hedesignedwasaFuturistsymbolforspeedand
technologicaladvancements.
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
Thesewerepaintingshehaddonein1919tostylizeandfinishtheconceptsofthedrawingsandsketcheshemade.Theintrestingpartofthesepaintings,
isthereisanabstracthumanfigurethatiscreatedusingmanygeometricshapesandsaturdatedvibrantcolors.

3. Textiles
“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 .
CreatedbyFortunatoDeperocalledTheRemida9250Stool.Madewithain-wax-polishedbleached
mapleframe.Theseatmadewithcowhideinsertsingreen,yellow,blue,pinkandredtoreporducethe
originalgeometricdesign.
TextilescreatedbyFortunatoDepero,madetoenhanehis
previousillustrationofthefigureusingfabricsandtapestry.
Cushionpiecesmadein1920.
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
Deperoproducedthistapestryin1925,asafacistformofpropa-
ganda.“Agleefullygruesometapestry,War=Festival.Depero’s
tapestryfeaturedsoldiersslaughteringoneanotheragainsta
backdropresemblingajubilantpyrotechnicdisplay.”2
ThisimagewasoneofDepero’slatesketchesofatypemonumentdonein
1927.HenamedthisPadigioneDelLibroTrevesTumminellDeDeperoThe
ImageaboveisofthehandmadephyiscalstructurecreatedbyDepero.
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.
ThesepieceswereapartofFortunatoDepero’sbookportfolio.Thepieceshechose,showedavarietyoftypeographyskillsandstructuralimages.Heincluded
somepiecesfromthebeginningofhisFuturismartin1913andheincludedCampariadvertisementpiecesmadein1925toshowarangeofdesigndevelopment
Futurista

4. 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
OneofDerpero’sfirstsketchesoftheNewYorkcitySceneary
whichheconstructedwithtypeinsteadofimage.Made1929

5. 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 for 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, logos 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.
Worksmadein1933,MostoftheseimagesareadvertisementsthatdeperohadworkedonforCampariAperitif.Afterhe
workingonpostershemovedontosculpturalwork.TheimageonthebottomrightisoneofDeperossculpturesofanab-
stractfigureusingCampari.Deperowasconceptualinhismaterialanddesignedeffectiveworkforclientsandcompanies.
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
Cropedimageispartofapaintingdoneby
FortunatoDeperoofNewYorkCitystructures

6. CHELSEA
ALEXANDER
4.
1.
2.
Group,HangarDesign.“Guggenheim.”
Guggenheim.PeggyGuggenheim,n.d.Web.
06Dec.2015.
3.
“DesignHistory
Mashup:Fortunato
Depero’sRole
inTypographic
Expansion.”Design
HistoryMashup:
FortunatoDepero’s
RoleinTypographic
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.
DesignedBy
2015
RISD