Brutalism in design
What is brutalism?
Brutalism, with its stark, imposing structures and unapologetic use of raw materials, stands as a testament to architectural audacity.
It was in the 1950s that the brilliant architect Le Corbusier (“Le Corbu” to his friends) began to design a new kind of building with austere lines, marked geometry and the absence of any decorative element that might lighten the massive dimensions.
Once again, the French-Swiss architect was making history.
Brutalism in architecture
Over the next 20 years, his idea would find its way into the designs of figures of the stature of Mies van der Rohe, Alvar Aalto and Miguel Fisac. This kind of “architecture on steroids” is still making its presence felt in huge buildings the length and breadth of the planet.
There is the Unité d’Habitation de Marseille by Le Corbusier himself; the Torres Blancas in Madrid by Saenz de Oiza, (Fisac’s impressive Pagoda was demolished in 1999); La Fábrica and Walden 7 in Barcelona, both by Ricardo Bofill; the famous Trellick Tower in London; Habitat 67, in Montreal; and the no less spectacular Geisel Library in San Diego, Boston City Hall and Freeway Park in Seattle.
In all these creations the overwhelming presence of an emphatic material stands out: exposed or raw concrete – in French, betón brut. This “brut” ended up giving its name to the architectural movement we know today as Brutalism. Famous for the sheer size of its buildings and the polarized reactions they generate (people love them or hate them), the ripples of this architectural school resonate, decades later, beyond the enormous concrete walls that characterize the style.
Specifically, we see the echoes on publicity materials and on many of the screens we look at every day. In fact, in the absence of pixelated concrete, more and more visuals are opting to throw information in the rough, just as it lands, splat, on the interface or the poster of the moment.
Brutalism in graphic design
In a more or less logical reaction to super happy designs and derivatives, those creators in search of the umpteenth way to innovate and attract attention find in the Brutalist manifesto the answer to their prayers for a profoundly anti-aesthetic aesthetic (at least in terms of appearance) for their visual approach to posters.
It might seem that these designers are working to put any number of spokes in their own wheels. They resort to a visual conception with an ugly, rough, cold approach – as unwelcoming as the concrete blocks of Brutalist architectural landmarks. In the absence of concrete, designers make use of heavy compositional elements that they repeat endlessly, garish colors, anarchic compositions and, why not? blurred texts, absurd photomontages… In short, anything goes. Could this be the anti-design we hear so much about?
Brutalism in digital design
To find out whether you are dealing with a Brutalist interface, try looking for the following elements: unnecessary movements, Pleistocene graphics, monochromatic color schemes, with an abundance of black and white or grays (digital homage to concrete), modular design elements and stratified, articulated or extruded pieces that are repeated ad nauseam.
If, in addition, the website uses a default HTML with no style, it’s beyond doubt – this is the coding equivalent of the Brutalist concept of obviating all aesthetic detail and appealing to functionality, pure and simple. In pursuit of the most basic usability, straight lines, basic geometries and unedited design elements proliferate…
The intentional “absurdity” is served on your plate.
This apparent effort to damage the simple visualization of an image or the navigation of a website, even at the cost of conditioning the user’s own experience, is beginning to be referred to as anti-design. All of a sudden, it seems that the watchword is to forget all your professional training in the field, as well as the most elementary notions of aesthetics, and to jump into the void without a parachute and start creating sites where the user experience is anything but friendly.
In this game that goes against the grain in order to attract attention, and in a world where everything seems to have already been invented, it’s not a bad idea to look back and, with the aesthetic excuse of Brutalism, evoke the designs that primitive websites used when technology could offer no more… or to those first steps you took when you first became interested in design and your graphics looked like an eighties advert.
At Freepik we suggest that you take a walk on the wild side of aesthetics through the good number of visual resources under the “Brutalism” label. From pre-school geometries to strident website proposals, in this gallery of vectors, photos and icons you’ll find an immediate and resounding explanation of what this style means in today’s design world. And don’t be too quick to dismiss its gaudy presence. There are many projects for which this audacious proposal could be the ideal visual approach.
We don’t want to say goodbye without a final warning for navigators… and for creative captains. Brutalism is a proposal as audacious as it is effective in visual design. There are plenty of works that prove it. But bear in mind that getting into the garden of so-called anti-design can harm the good image of a vast majority of products, and remember that some of the great masterpieces of architectural Brutalism have been demolished, abandoned, or lost in a city in northern India…
