the futurist typographic revolution

The printed word was extremely important to Futurism; the movement's beginnings
were based in poetry and literature produced in magazines, pamphlets and books. Also,
the reliance on the large number of widely circulated manifestos for the dissemination of
the polemic doctrines and artistic theories of Futurism almost made it the product of an
advertising machine.
The Italian millionaire poet, writer and originator of Futurism,
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founded the international magazine
Poesia (Poetry) in 1905. Marinetti was on a personal crusade to
liberate poetry and literature from the constraints of traditional
punctuation and syntax and, from the very beginning, he used
Poesia to launch the idea of verso libero (free verse). In 1909, in
his Founding Manifesto of Futurism, he stated "Up to now,
literature has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep.
We intend to exalt aggressive action, a feverish insomnia, the
racer's stride, the mortal leap, the punch and the slap." Poesia
ran from 1905 until 1909 by which time the style and layout had
become outmoded. The last issue carried Marinetti's Futurist
Political Manifesto. The cover was designed by Alberto Martini
and each issue was produced with a different cover colour.
In 1912 Marinetti published his Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature in which he
urged writers to "banish punctuation, as well as adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctions."
Verso libero gradually evolved into parole in libert (words-in-freedom) the purpose of
which Marinetti outlined in his manifesto Destruction of Syntax - Imagination without
Strings - Words-in-Freedom of 1913.
"I initiate a typographical revolution aimed at the bestial, nauseating idea of the book of
passist and D'Annunzian verse, on Seventeenth Century handmade paper bordered
with helmets, Minervas, Apollos, elaborate red initials, vegetables, mythological missal
ribbons, epigraphs, and roman numerals. The book must be the Futurist expression of
our Futurist thought. My revolution is aimed at the so-called typographical harmony of
the page, which is contrary to the flux and reflux, the leaps and bursts of style that run
through the page. On the same page, therefore, we will use three or four colours of ink,
or even twenty different typefaces if necessary. For example: italics for a series of
similar or swift sensations, boldface for violent onomatopoeias, and so on. With this
typographical revolution and this multicoloured variety in the letters I mean to redouble
the expressive force of words."
The mass production and distribution of the manifesto ensured an
influence on typography internationally with, for example, the Russian El
Lissitzky quoting Marinetti in his writings on new typography. Marinetti's
own book, Zang Tumb Tumb (1914) typifies the style and feeling of
words-in-freedom and is a milestone in typographic design. The book is
an account of the Turkish Battle of Adrianopolis of 1912 in which Marinetti
volunteered. Words-in-freedom are used onomatopoeically to graphically
illustrate the explosions of weapons and grenades and the noise of battle.

With its dynamic formats and striking use of colour and typography, Marinetti's wordsin-freedom concept was seized upon by the Futurists resulting in many books in a
similar style while Francesco Cangiullo's book Caff-Concerto - Alfabeto a sorpresa

(Caf-Chantant - Surprising Alphabet), of 1916 (printed in 1919) took words-in-freedom

to the extreme and used letters of differing heights, weights and typefaces to form all
the pictures (click here).
Since the Futurist movement was born of the machine age, to the
Futurists the design and production of a book was symbolic of that
age. Modern materials and methods were employed - for example
Fortunato Depero's famous 1927 Depero Futurista (also known as
The Nailed Book) employed two aluminium bolts as a fastening
method.
Even if the method of bookbinding was new and innovative, the inside of the book was
just as inspired (click here). Printed on different colours and weights of paper, the text in
words-in-freedom style, was a stimulating typographical experience. There was no right
or wrong way to hold the book and the layout necessitated turning the book around in
order to read it.
Some five years after Depero's mechanical bookbinding was produced,
Marinetti produced Parole in libert: olfattive, tattili, termiche (Words-infreedom: olfactory, tactile, thermal) in 1932 using metal sheets for
pages in the ultimate mechanical book.