RIGHT.. seeing as the book I've got from the library's gonna be taken back tomorrow, I guess I'd better use it!
It was recommended to me by a friend, and it is infact rather handy!
Here's some interesting images from the book that nicely demonstrates the different grids that have been made, and can be made to suit various styles of magazines etc. There's also some information I've taken from the book, which explains about how to make grids and how they work. They're all really simple, and quite obvious.
HOW DO GRIDS WORK?
WHEN ARE THEY APPROPRIATE?
WHY USE THEM AT ALL?
All design work involves problem solving on both visual and organizational levels. Pictures and symbols, fields of text, headlines, tabular data: all these pieces must come together to communicate. A grid is simply one approach to bringing those pieces together. Grids can be loose and organic, or they can be rigorous and mechanical. To some designers, the grid represents an inherent part of the craft of designing, the same way joinery in furniture making is a part of that particular craft. The history of the grid has been part of an evolution in how graphic designers think about designing, as well as a response to specific communication and production problems that needed to be solved. A corporate literature program, for example, is a late twentieth-century problem with complex goals and requirements. Among other things, a grid is suited to helping solve communication problems of great complexity.
The benefits of working with a grid are simple: clarity, efficiency, economy, and continuity.
Before anything else, a grid introduces systematic order to a layout, distinguishing types of information and easing a user's navigation through them. Using a grid permits a designer to lay out enormous amounts of information, such as in a book or a series of catalogues, in substantially less time because many design considerations have been addressed in building the grid's structure. The grid also allows many individuals to collaborate on the same project, or on series of related projects over time, without compromising established visual qualities from one project to the next.
Breaking the page into parts.
Building an effective grid for a given project means thoughtfully assessing that project's specific content in terms of the visual and semantic qualities of typography space.
Typographic space is goverened by a series of part-to-whole relationships. The single letter is a kernal, part of a word. Words together create a line: not just a line of thought but a line on the page, a visual element that establishes itself in the spatial field of the format. Placing a line of type in the blank landscape of a page instantly creates a structure. It's a simple structure, but one with a direction, a movement and, now, two defined areas of space: one space above the line and one space below.
One line after another, after another, becomes a paragraph. It's no longer simply a line, but a shape with a hard and a soft edge. The hard edge creates a reference to the page, and as it stretches out in depth, the paragraph becomes a column, simultaniously breaking space and becoming a space itself. Columns repeated or varied in proportion create a rhythm of interlocking spaces in which the format edge is restated, countered, and restated again. The voides between paragraphs, columns, and images help to establish the eye's movement through the material, as do the textural mass of the words they surround.
Alignments between masses and voids visually connect or seperate them. By breaking space within the compositional field, the designer stimulates and involves the viewer. A passive composition, where intervals between elements are regular, creates a field of texture that is in statis. By introducing changes, such as a larger interval between lines or a heavier weight, the designer creates emphasis within the textural uniformity. The mind perceives that emphasis as some kinda of importance. Creating importance establishes an order, or hierarchy, between elements on the page, and each successive change introduces a new relationship between the parts. Visual shifts in emphasis within the hierarchy are inseperable from their effect on the verbal or conceptual sense of the content. A designer has unlimited options for making changes in type size, weight, placement, and interval to affect hierarchy and, therefore, the perceived sequence of the information. The grid organizes this relationship of alignments and hierarchies into an intelligible order that is repeatable and understandable by others.
A grid consists of a distinct set of alignment-based relationships that act as guides for distributing elements across a format. Every grid contains the same basic parts, no matter how complex the grid becomes. Each part fulfills a specific function; the parts can be combined as needed, or omitted from the overall structure at the designer's discretion, depending on how they interpret the informational requirements of the material.
Building an appropriate structure
Working with a grid depends on two phases of development. In the first phase, the designer attempts to assess the informational characteristics and the production requirements of the content. This phase is extremely important; the grid is a closed system once it is developed, and in building it the designer must account for the content's idiosyncrasies, such as multiple kinds of information, the nature of the images, and the number of images. Additionally, the designer must anticipate potential problems that might occur while laying out the content within the grid, such as unusually long headlines, cropping of images, or dead spots left if the content in one section runs out.
The second phase consists of laying out the material according to the guidelines established by the grid. It's important to understand that the grid, although a precise guide, should never subordinate the elements within it. Its job is to provide overall unity without snuffing out the vitality of the composition. In most circumstancesm the variety of solutions for laying out a page within a given grid are inexhaustible, but even then it's wise to violate the grid on occasion. A designer shouldn't be afraid of his or her grid, but push against it to test its limits. A really well-planned grid creates endless opportunities for exploration.
Every design problem is different and requires a grid structure that addresses its particular elements. There are several basic kinds of grid, and as a starting point, each is suited to solving certain kinds of problems. The first step in the process is to consider which type of basic structure will accommodate the project's specific needs.
The anatomy of a grid: The basic parts of a page.
Here's some interesting images from the book that nicely demonstrates the different grids that have been made, and can be made to suit various styles of magazines etc. There's also some information I've taken from the book, which explains about how to make grids and how they work. They're all really simple, and quite obvious.
HOW DO GRIDS WORK?
WHEN ARE THEY APPROPRIATE?
WHY USE THEM AT ALL?
All design work involves problem solving on both visual and organizational levels. Pictures and symbols, fields of text, headlines, tabular data: all these pieces must come together to communicate. A grid is simply one approach to bringing those pieces together. Grids can be loose and organic, or they can be rigorous and mechanical. To some designers, the grid represents an inherent part of the craft of designing, the same way joinery in furniture making is a part of that particular craft. The history of the grid has been part of an evolution in how graphic designers think about designing, as well as a response to specific communication and production problems that needed to be solved. A corporate literature program, for example, is a late twentieth-century problem with complex goals and requirements. Among other things, a grid is suited to helping solve communication problems of great complexity.
The benefits of working with a grid are simple: clarity, efficiency, economy, and continuity.
Before anything else, a grid introduces systematic order to a layout, distinguishing types of information and easing a user's navigation through them. Using a grid permits a designer to lay out enormous amounts of information, such as in a book or a series of catalogues, in substantially less time because many design considerations have been addressed in building the grid's structure. The grid also allows many individuals to collaborate on the same project, or on series of related projects over time, without compromising established visual qualities from one project to the next.
Breaking the page into parts.
Building an effective grid for a given project means thoughtfully assessing that project's specific content in terms of the visual and semantic qualities of typography space.
Typographic space is goverened by a series of part-to-whole relationships. The single letter is a kernal, part of a word. Words together create a line: not just a line of thought but a line on the page, a visual element that establishes itself in the spatial field of the format. Placing a line of type in the blank landscape of a page instantly creates a structure. It's a simple structure, but one with a direction, a movement and, now, two defined areas of space: one space above the line and one space below.
One line after another, after another, becomes a paragraph. It's no longer simply a line, but a shape with a hard and a soft edge. The hard edge creates a reference to the page, and as it stretches out in depth, the paragraph becomes a column, simultaniously breaking space and becoming a space itself. Columns repeated or varied in proportion create a rhythm of interlocking spaces in which the format edge is restated, countered, and restated again. The voides between paragraphs, columns, and images help to establish the eye's movement through the material, as do the textural mass of the words they surround.
Alignments between masses and voids visually connect or seperate them. By breaking space within the compositional field, the designer stimulates and involves the viewer. A passive composition, where intervals between elements are regular, creates a field of texture that is in statis. By introducing changes, such as a larger interval between lines or a heavier weight, the designer creates emphasis within the textural uniformity. The mind perceives that emphasis as some kinda of importance. Creating importance establishes an order, or hierarchy, between elements on the page, and each successive change introduces a new relationship between the parts. Visual shifts in emphasis within the hierarchy are inseperable from their effect on the verbal or conceptual sense of the content. A designer has unlimited options for making changes in type size, weight, placement, and interval to affect hierarchy and, therefore, the perceived sequence of the information. The grid organizes this relationship of alignments and hierarchies into an intelligible order that is repeatable and understandable by others.
A grid consists of a distinct set of alignment-based relationships that act as guides for distributing elements across a format. Every grid contains the same basic parts, no matter how complex the grid becomes. Each part fulfills a specific function; the parts can be combined as needed, or omitted from the overall structure at the designer's discretion, depending on how they interpret the informational requirements of the material.
Building an appropriate structure
Working with a grid depends on two phases of development. In the first phase, the designer attempts to assess the informational characteristics and the production requirements of the content. This phase is extremely important; the grid is a closed system once it is developed, and in building it the designer must account for the content's idiosyncrasies, such as multiple kinds of information, the nature of the images, and the number of images. Additionally, the designer must anticipate potential problems that might occur while laying out the content within the grid, such as unusually long headlines, cropping of images, or dead spots left if the content in one section runs out.
The second phase consists of laying out the material according to the guidelines established by the grid. It's important to understand that the grid, although a precise guide, should never subordinate the elements within it. Its job is to provide overall unity without snuffing out the vitality of the composition. In most circumstancesm the variety of solutions for laying out a page within a given grid are inexhaustible, but even then it's wise to violate the grid on occasion. A designer shouldn't be afraid of his or her grid, but push against it to test its limits. A really well-planned grid creates endless opportunities for exploration.
Every design problem is different and requires a grid structure that addresses its particular elements. There are several basic kinds of grid, and as a starting point, each is suited to solving certain kinds of problems. The first step in the process is to consider which type of basic structure will accommodate the project's specific needs.
The anatomy of a grid: The basic parts of a page.
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