Seventeenth International Conference on Design Principles & Practices

Abstract

Brutalist design has been used in the digital world as an alternative communication style increasingly explored by several brands, with particular emphasis on the fashion, music, and museum industries. The graphic particularities of this style are often confused with other styles that are also widely explored in web design, such as minimalism and anti-design. This research, anchored in trends studies, graphic design, and advertising, identifies the features of brutalism in web design, confronting them with the minimalism and anti-design ones. The result of this research, which encompassed an extended literature review and case studies analysis, allowed the identification of specific features and the definition of boundaries between the three styles, leading to the proposal of a Guide that can clarify the stylistic particularities of these distinct graphic approaches, still insufficiently well perceived within graphic design and advertising industry, as the surveys conducted among design professionals and students had confirmed. The Guide intends to serve as a tool for the interpretation and application of the aforementioned styles and aims to reinforce the relevance of brutalism as a communication strategy for brands, thus contributing to the study of trends in the areas of Graphic Design and Advertising.