De Stijl vs De Stijl Graphics

De Stijl Graphics is the cross-discipline counterpart of De Stijl — the graphic wing of the same Neoplasticist movement that produced its architecture.

Rietveld Schröder House, Utrecht — De Stijl

De Stijl

A Dutch avant-garde movement reducing design to straight lines, rectangular planes, and primary colours plus black, white, and grey — composing buildings from sliding, intersecting planes for a radically abstract, weightless effect.

  • Composition from sliding, intersecting rectangular planes
  • Strict palette of primary colours with black, white, and grey
  • Straight horizontal and vertical lines; no curves or diagonals
  • Dissolution of the solid box into floating, weightless surfaces
  • Flexible open interiors with movable partitions
Full De Stijl guide →
Cover of the journal De Stijl, vol. 4 no. 8 (1921)

De Stijl Graphics

The radically reductive Dutch graphic language of De Stijl — strict horizontals and verticals, primary colors with black and white, and geometric letterforms built only from rectangles and the right angle.

  • Strictly horizontal and vertical lines — no diagonals or curves
  • Primary colors plus black, white, and grey only
  • Letterforms constructed from rectangular elements
  • Asymmetric balance within an orthogonal grid
  • Flat rectangular fields of color as composition
Full De Stijl Graphics guide →

At a glance

De StijlDe Stijl Graphics
Era1917–19311917–1931
DisciplineArchitectureGraphic Design
RegionNetherlands, UtrechtNetherlands
FamilyModernismAvant-Garde, Modernism
Formal traitsrectilinear, primary-colour, planar, asymmetricorthogonal, geometric, primary-color, asymmetric

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