Rise of the Ism's

"It could be said that the fusion of Cubis painting and Futurist poetry spawned 20th century Graphic Design." -- Meggs.

Much like Behrens, self-taught designer Lucian Bernhard set the ground work for distinct professional identity for graphic design -- tying closely with the focus of modernist pictorial graphics which became developments enduring as major concerns of the 20th century:

• Graphic simplification
• Integration of word and image
• Symbolic concerns of Synthetic Cubism
  

DADA and the Futurist developed during the advent of the World War; the former a reaction in the style of "anti-style" -- (a sort of response to the world saying that if all this death and destruction are going on in our world, then how could there be art? How could there be style or beauty in anything while the meaningless loss of life continues?) and the latter being actually in favor of war -- it voiced enthusiasm for danger and the machine age, called for the destruction of libraries and museums to fight against moralism, feminism, and utilitarian cowardice. But the importance of these two movements are enormous -- they are the catalyst for all the modern movements in the early decades of the 20th century, including Avant-Garde, Cubism, Surrealism, and Automatism.

The leaders of this significant era who are important to remember:

• Ferdinand de Saussure (Structural Linguistics)
• Stephane Mallarme
• Filippo Marinetti
• Ludwig Hohlwien
• Picasso
• Giacomo Balla
• Tristan Tzara
• Voltaire
• Duchamp
• John Heartfield
• George Grosz
• Kurt Schwitters
• Max Ernst
• Rene Magritte
• Man Ray