8 ANIME in una bomba

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, the fiery leader of the Futurist movement, was never one for subtlety. His 1919 novel 8 Anime in una Bomba (Eight Souls in a Bomb) is an explosive metaphor—both in its theme and in its typography.  In the novel, Marinetti describes the fusion of the eight souls into a 92 kg bomb, destined for "cholera lice, moralistic priests, spies, professors, and policemen"—a violent, anti-establishment declaration characteristic of Futurist rhetoric.

The poster immediately draws the eye with its dramatic layout. At the center, an explosion of words—SCRAANG, BRAAANG, GRAANG—bursts outward, mimicking the chaotic force of a bomb detonating. The typography isn’t neat or restrained; instead, it breaks free from traditional alignment, curving and scattering across the page. This was a signature of Futurist typography, where words weren’t just carriers of meaning but visual elements in their own right.

The color palette is stark, using only red and black to heighten the impact. Red, a color of urgency and revolution, dominates the composition, reinforcing the aggressive, forward-driving nature of Futurism. The sharp, jagged lines radiating from the explosion give a sense of uncontrolled movement, a direct challenge to the static, balanced compositions of traditional poster art.

The novel 8 Anime in una Bomba was published by Edizioni Futuriste di "Poesia", a publishing house dedicated to Futurist works. This poster is a direct extension of Marinetti’s 1913 “Destruction of Syntax” manifesto, where he called for typography to be liberated from rigid structure. Futurists like Marinetti and Fortunato Depero experimented with dynamic page layouts, layering text in different sizes, angles, and orientations to create a sense of motion. In 8 Anime in una Bomba, this approach is pushed even further—language becomes an explosion, and the page itself feels like a battlefield.