The rise of Brutalism and Antidesign : And their implications on web design history

The following bachelor thesis is written by a student at New Media Design within Informatics at the School of Engineering, Jönköping University. The background of this study is based on the emergence of web design trends brutalism and antidesign, which have been argued to originate from styles used during early periods of the web’s history. Furthermore, a lack of cultural analysis within web design has been identified. The visual evolution of the world wide web is not sorted into distinct and widely acknowledged periods or categories such as is the case with most other cultural areas like music and art. The emergence and popularity of brutalism and antidesign were identified as potential cases of visual styles returning from the past. They were therefore considered opportunities to examine visual periods in web design and predict where the field is heading in the future. The study was conducted using the qualitative method of semi-structured interviews. The empirical data was analysed using a thematic analysis and was later compared with theories derived from literature studies. The study found three reasons behind the rise of brutalism and antidesign in web design; the world wide web’s coming of age, reactions towards the mainstream web and the interest in retro trends. The study also aimed to find the possible implications of their emergence on the aesthetic evolution of web design. It was found that brutalism and antidesign are part of a large number of experimental and retro trends that will continue to emerge. Though they are unlikely to directly affect mainstream web design in its current state, they may be seen as design movements. This may be viewed as a step in the direction of visual categories within web design