Project: Silk Sonic x Futurism

Project Type: Graphic Design

Description: This project emphasizes the importance of design history and how it can influence designs today. The objective was to choose work from an artist of a specific art movement, considering the movement’s concept, philosophy, technique, composition, color, and typographic treatment, and correlate it to a musical artist. 

For this project, I decided to imitate the art movement Futurism. The designer I chose was the inventor of Futurism, Filippo Marinetti. The band I felt that could best represent Futurism and Marinetti’s work is Silk Sonic. This is because Silk Sonic and Futurism both heavily focus on sound and energy. 

Since Futurism arose during industrialism, many works often signified the speed, movement, and energy of the age’s new technologies. To portray this, Futurists incorporated the sounds of machines and war into their designs. Similar to Silk Sonic, in the way they emphasize the sounds of drums, bass, and vocals. To do this they hook listeners with rhythmic drumbeats and catchy call-and-response vocals. Additionally, both the band and art movement induce a feeling of energy. Marinetti does this by creating his designs to seem as if it is moving on or across the page. In the same way, Silk Sonic’s music has a flow that allows listeners to easily follow the rhythms both auditorily and physically.

Concept: Both Futurism and Silk Sonic introduced a new style to the current era heavily focusing on sound and energy, even inspiring others to follow in their steps which popularized their new style.