Making and Breaking the Grid, Third Edition

MAKINGthe Grid

All design projects involve 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 as a totality. Using a grid is one approach to doing so.

Before anything else, a grid introduces systematic order to a layout. Not only does it distinguish different types of information, easing a user’s navigation through them but—just as importantly—it ensures vital cohesion among visual elements, harmonizing them through the systems of spatial proportions and positioning logic it defines.

Using a grid permits a designer to more rapidly lay out enormous amounts of information because many design considerations are addressed in building ...