Dadaism had some similarities with futurism in terms of the aesthetic bult not in terms of the philosophy, it can be seen to have created this typographical revolution. Typography itself was thrown into question along with representation and the image, along with the nature of reality. They wondered how and why typography created meaning, in order to do this it removed the graphic work from the meaning it transmitted. It divided the meaning of the word with what it actually looks like as a semiotic Device.
Visual communication stands independently form it's aesthetically induced meaning. Described as eruptive, non linear and independent form contextual content, they use double meaning and pun, in some cases you can see some of the meaning and content being relevant but generally it was just about the symbols themselves.
In terms of functionality, similarly to the futurists, the layout was random and challenging the existing Norms wasn't concerning dada layouts. Lots of text composed on the same page, placed in disharmonious assembling was as well as disharmonious use of white space. It pushed typography to its limits of legibility. Dadaism was violating the canon, it was being so subversive to try and establish the case for language and logic.
The word Dadaism was selected as a meaningless word which they felt was completely relevant to the movement due to its meaning as "hobbyhorse". Along with type, another technique that was used in this movement was the use of photo collage and montage, developing a unique method of reinterpreting and re contextualising photographs. It allowed the Dadaists to create uncompromising representations whilst altering the meaning, but the images remaining readable. Some of the cubist collages used similar techniques to this. Photomontage was being used in general in 1919 and one reason that the dada artist decided to appropriate was to disrupt this new way of advertising and turning it around and doing something different with it. They mirrored the structural break down of society, they were trying to disturb the viewers interpretation. Quite mischievous and also quite humorous, often quite obscure, creating meaningless and defiance. There was no way to truly decide what the meaning was.