Making and Breaking the Grid

Coming to Order

A Brief History of the Grid in Modern Graphic Design

The history of the grid’s development is convoluted and complex. Modern graphic design, as we know it, is a young profession, but incidences of grid use predate the Romans and the Greeks; a full exposition of that history would be impossible here. For our purposes, the grid that is used in Western graphic design evolved during the Industrial Revolution. Ideas circulate in artistic communities, however; trying to pinpoint the precise genesis of one does history a disservice. Gathered here is a rather simplified overview of a complicated process. Contributions by thousands of designers, over more than a century, have been generalized into a few pages; many have been overlooked ...