A

Graphic Design Layout Workshop

Second Edition Updated and Expanded

Timothy Samara
 Contents
Thoughts on Structure— An Introduction

1 Making the Grid

Coming to Order—
A Brief History of the Grid in Graphic Design

Grid Basics
Fundamental Concepts of Page Structure

Building a Grid
Making the Structure That Suits Your Needs

Using a Grid
Considerations and Best Practices

Exhibits
Design Projects Based on Grids

2 Breaking the Grid

On the Other Hand—
A Historical Survey of Non-Structural Design Tendencies

Alternative Architectures

Intuitive, Relational, and Conceptual

Considering the Practical in the Impractical

Exhibits
Design Projects Without Grids

Directory of Contributors
Index by Subject
Bibliography / Recommended Reading
About the Author
Acknowledgments
 Thoughts on Structure —

An Introduction

For some graphic designers, it has become an unquestioned part of the working process that
yields precision, order, and clarity.

For others, it is symbolic of Old Guard aesthetic oppression, a stifling cage that hinders the search
for expression.

The typographic grid is an organizing principle in graphic design whose

influence is simultaneously ingrained in current practice and fought over in
design education, revered and reviled for the absolutes inherent in its conception.
It is a principle with roots in the cultural practices of the oldest societies on the
planet. Eking out an existence with some kind of meaning—and creating an
understandable order for that meaning—is one of the activities that distinguishes
our species from all others.
___ Structural thinking, even before its latest codification through European and
American Modernism, has been a hallmark of cultures struggling toward
civilization. The Chinese, the Japanese, the Greeks and Romans, the Inca—all of
these cultures have pursued structural ideas in laying out their towns, conducting
warfare, instituting religious rituals, arranging images. In many instances, that
structure was predicated on the notion of intersecting axes that corresponded to
the intersection of sky and earth.
___ The grid instituted by Modernism restated that long-ingrained sense of
order, formalizing it yet another degree and transforming it into an established
part of design. The typographic grid—a fundamental tenet of the International
Style—is an orthogonal planning system that parcels information into
manageable chunks. The assumption of this system is that placement and scale
relationships between informational elements—whether words or images—help
an audience understand their meaning. Like items are arranged in similar ways
so that their similarities are made more apparent and, therefore, more
recognizable. The grid renders the elements it controls into a neutral spatial field
of regularity that permits accessibility—viewers know where to locate
information they seek because the junctures of horizontal and vertical divisions
act as signposts for locating that information. The system helps viewers
act as signposts for locating that information. The system helps viewers
understand its use. In one sense, the grid is like a visual filing cabinet.
___ As an institutionalized metaphor for all that is right in the world—the
intersection of heaven and earth made manifest in every object it governs—the
grid has also been imbued with an explicitly spiritual quality. Its early
proponents among the European avant-garde fought zealously on its behalf:
Theo van Doesburg’s mere tilting of the 90° de Stijl axis caused his partner, Piet
Mondrian, to sever ties; Josef Müller-Brockmann, the grid’s Swiss champion in
the 1950s and 1960s, defined its will to order in nearly canonical terms.
___ For the graphic designers who helped society struggle to move forward after
two unimaginable wars, order and clarity became their most important goals.
Part of that order, of course, meant consumer comforts; and the businesses that
provided them recognized soon enough that the grid could help organize their
public presence and their bottom lines.
___ As the use of grids has changed from self-conscious gesture to that of
second-nature reflex, so, too, has the viewing public become more accustomed
to information presented to them in greater quantities, simultaneously, in greater
complexity, and in more languages. And they’re not simply accustomed to it:
they want it that way. The grid’s minimal simplicity is somewhat at odds with
the kinetic, shifting surface of multi media; information isn’t flat anymore, and
the average person expects it to move, jump, twist, and make noise.
Paradoxically, the corporations that clothed themselves in the grid’s neutral,
utopian uniform helped create the oversaturated environment that is currently in
demand.
___ Recent years have seen the design profession, its activities, and ‘design
thinking,’ come to the forefront of public consciousness; it’s become an
especially important discipline for the information age. Within the design
community, discussions of accessibility, gender, race, and other social concerns
are given greater priority than the intrinsic relationships between form,
organization, and meaning; it’s hard to find that kind of discussion in the design
industry any more. Given that form making and its organization are inextricably
linked to the visual dissemination of information, however, it seems likely that
this simple-seeming discussion could really be a bit more complex, perhaps even
wrapping these same bigger issues that graphic designers have been giving more
attention... an aesthetic ‘unconscious’ of sorts we’ve decided to ignore without
realizing its fundamental hegemony.
___ The current era is a little bit like that of Victorian England during the first
Industrial Revolution, in the sense that we’re living through another
paradigmatic shift in technology and culture: Our appliances talk to us, our
vision is global. The world’s vast space has been reduced metaphorically as well
vision is global. The world’s vast space has been reduced metaphorically as well
as physically, and we’re learning to cope with an uncomfortable intimacy as the
private self recedes and resources dwindle. Our own industrial revolution’s
similarity to its antecedent continues, not unexpectedly, in its influence on the
arts. A plurality of oft conflicting approaches reflects the general cultural
confusion that has pervaded the beginning of this millennium.
___ Interestingly, since the publication of this book’s first edition in 2003, grid
use has become remarkably prevalent, ostensibly driven by the practical
demands of responsive UX design in a world increasingly linked by online
communication. It may also reflect a renewed urge for cultural unity in response
to that early millenial confusion. Simplicity, order, and visual neutrality in
communication are, historically, strategies aimed at facilitating inclusivity... But
they also pose a potential threat through the aesthetic (and, arguably,
intellectual) conformity they engender: designers need only consider the
ubiquity of similarly templated, almost interchangeable, websites and branded
communication programs in current proliferation to appreciate that efficiencies
in organization and production can also render an experiential landscape that is
repetitve, undifferentiated, and mind-numbingly dull.
___ Given ongoing discussions about identity, the individual’s relationship to
society at large, and our responsibilities to each other and our shared
environment, conversations about where to put things—the mundane
‘housekeeping’ of grid-based design—still have value, but so too do those
concerned with imagining ways of connecting with each other through visual
languages that are unexpected, unconventional, and uniquely expressive.
‘Information’ comes in many varieties, not the least of which are the symbolic,
metaphorical, and emotional; effiicient transmission need not be the only
concern and, quite often, inefficiency in the visualization of information results
in an audience’s deeper understanding of a message by virtue of the challenges it
asks them to overcome.
___ Ultimately, it is incumbent upon designers to evaluate the many options for
constructing a visual communication they have before them—grid-based and
otherwise—and to choose that which allows them to build the most thoughtful,
useful, and meaningful experiences for their audiences that they can envision.

The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible

uses and each designer can look for a solution that is appropriate to his or
her personal style.
—
But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.
Josef Müller-Brockmann

The grid is like a lion in a cage, and the designer is the lion tamer. It’s fun
to play with the lion, but the designer has to know when to get out before
the lion eats him.
Massimo Vignelli

Graphic design that tries to make things simple is not doing anybody any
real benefit. Society needs to understand how to deal with the subtlety,
complexity, and contradiction in contemporary life.
—
It is possible and necessary to have both complexity and intelligibility in
graphic design.
Katherine McCoy
 1 Making the Grid
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 as a totality. 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
the grid’s structure at the outset of a project. A grid also allows many
individuals to collaborate on the same project, or on related projects, without
compromising established visual qualities from one instance to the next. The
benefits of working with a grid are simple: clarity, efficiency, and continuity.

To some designers, the grid is an inherent part of the craft of designing, as is

joinery in the craft of furniture making. Its assimilation into practice has been
part of an evolution in how graphic designers think about designing, as well
as a response to specific communication and production issues needing to be
addressed at various times throughout the discipline’s history.
Coming to Order—
A Brief History of the Grid in Graphic Design

The grid’s development over the past 150 years coincides with dramatic
technological and social changes in Western civilization and the response of
philosophers, artists, and designers to those changes. The Industrial Revolution
that began in 1740s England changed the way people lived—its effect on our
culture was fundamental. As the invention of mechanical power induced people
to seek a living in cities, power shifted away from the land-owning aristocracy
toward manufacturers, merchants, and the working class. Demand from an urban
population with ever-increasing buying power stimulated technology, fueling
mass production, lowered costs, and increased availability.
___ Design assumed an important role in communicating the desirability of
material goods. In addition, the French and American revolutions facilitated
progress in social equality, public education, and literacy, and helped to create a
greater audience for reading material.
___ With this enormous psychographic change came aesthetic confusion. The
Beaux-Arts tradition, much unchanged since the Renaissance and bolstered by
the strong moral and spiritual convictions of the times, held on to its aesthetic
contrivances and notions of neoclassical taste. A Victorian penchant for Gothic
architecture merged oddly with a taste for exotic textures imported from the
outreaches of the British Empire.
___ Contradictory design approaches and the need to supply the consuming
masses with products reached a kind of plateau in 1856 when writer and
designer Owen Jones produced The Grammar of Ornament, an enormous
catalog of patterns, styles, and embellishments that were co-opted to mass-
produce poorly made goods of questionable aesthetic quality.
FITNESS OF PURPOSE
The English Arts and Crafts movement in architecture, painting, and design
grew out of a reaction to this decline. At the movement’s forefront was William
Morris, a young student of privileged background who had become interested in
poetry and architecture—and their seeming disconnection with the industrialized
world. Morris was inspired by John Ruskin, a writer who insisted art could be
the basis of a social order that improved lives by unifying it with labor, as it had
in the Middle Ages. Together with Edward Burne-Jones, a fellow poet and
painter, and Philip Webb, an architect, Morris undertook the revitalization of
England’s daily aesthetic life. Webb’s design of Red House in 1860 for a just-
married Morris organized the spaces asymmetrically, based on their intended
uses, thereby dictating the shape of the facade. At the time, this idea was
unheard of—the prevailing neoclassical model called for a box layout with a
symmetrical facade.
___ Furthermore, no suitable furnishings existed for such a house. Morris was
compelled to design and supervise the production of all its furniture, textiles,
glass, and objects, becoming a master craftsman in the process. The company
that resulted from this experience, Morris and Company, vigorously advocated
the notion that fitness of purpose inspired form; their prolific output in textiles,
objects, glass, and furnishings heralded a way of working that responded to
content, was socially concerned, and paid utmost attention to the finished quality
of the work, even when it was mass-produced.
___ Arthur Mackmurdo and Sir Emery Walker, two of Morris’ contemporaries,
directed his attention toward type and book design. Mackmurdo’s periodical,
The Hobby Horse, espoused the same qualities—a purposeful proportioning of
space and careful control of type size, type selection, margins, and print quality
—to which Morris had aspired, but in printed form. In 1891, Morris established
the Kelmscott Press in Hammersmith, producing exquisitely designed books in
which the typefaces, woodblock illustrations, and materials were designed for
their aesthetic integration and ease of production. Morris’s most ambitious
project was The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, produced in 1894. Its illustrations,
display type blocks, and carved initials were integrated through size
relationships, and its layouts conformed to an overall predetermined structure
that dramatically unified the pages and allowed for faster production. This book
signaled a transition from medieval block manuscript (which paradoxically
provides its aesthetic framework) to modern page layout, where multiple types
of information are integrated into an articulated space.
___ The Arts and Crafts movement gained momentum and was transformed in a
number of ways—evolving into the sensuously organic style known as Art
Nouveau in France; as the painterly, more architectural Jugendstijl in Germany
and Belgium—as designers became accustomed to the effects of
industrialization. They sought new forms of expression that would speak to the
spirit of the age.
The Works of Chaucer / Page spread
After William Morris / The Kelmscott Press
Author’s schematic recreation

THE ARCHITECTURE OF SPACE

Influenced by a trip to England, the work of American architect Frank Lloyd
Wright began a systematic evolution away from the organic while continuing to
embody the same Arts and Crafts ideals. Like Philip Webb, Wright’s work
expressed a view that space was the essence of design, in which “the part is to
the whole as the whole is to the part, and which is all devoted to a purpose.”
Proportional relationships, rectangular zones, and asymmetrical organization
became guiding principles of what was becoming Modernism. A group of
Scottish collaborators—two sisters, Frances and Margaret McDonald, and their
husbands, James MacNair and Charles Rennie Macintosh, who had met as
students at the Glasgow School of Art—translated the medieval flair of Arts and
Crafts into more abstract and geometric articulations of space. They became
known as the Glasgow Four, and publication of their work in book arts and
furniture design in the periodical The Studio popularized their ideas as far away
as Vienna, Austria, and Hamburg, Germany.
Scottish Musical Review / Poster
After Frances Macdonald
Author’s schematic recreation
Modular Page Constructions / Book Design
After Josef Hofmann and Koloman Moser
Author’s schematic recreation

AN EXPANDING INFLUENCE
Peter Behrens, an aspiring young German architect, grew up in Hamburg under
this new influence, as well as that of the Viennese Secession, a
countermovement that drew its inspiration from the Glasgow Four and Wright.
The Secession distinguished itself with even more rectilinear approaches to
poster and book design, as well as architecture. Designers and architects like
Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, and Josef Maria Olbrich pursued functional
simplicity and eschewed decoration. In 1900, Peter Behrens moved to an artists’
colony in Darmstadt, established by the Grand Duke of Hesse. One of the other
seven artists invited by the Grand Duke and given land to build a house was
Josef Maria Olbrich. Through the effort of designing his house and all of its
contents, Behrens—like Morris, and in close aesthetic alignment with Olbrich—
found himself caught up in the same rational movement that sought order and
unity among the arts.
___ Along with industrial design and furniture, he also experimented with book
layout and the new sans serif typefaces that were beginning to appear from
foundries like Berthold. His first book, Celebration of Life and Art, is believed to
be the first running text set in a sans serif face. Although this book maintains a
block-manuscript approach to the composition of the page, it follows in the
footsteps of Morris’s spatially conceived works of Chaucer and lays important
groundwork for grid development in its use of sans serif type. The more uniform
texture of sans serif letterforms creates a neutrality within the text that
emphasizes its shape against the surrounding white space; placement and
interval assume greater visual importance.
Behrens moved to Düsseldorf in 1903 to direct that city’s School of Arts and
Behrens moved to Düsseldorf in 1903 to direct that city’s School of Arts and
Crafts, developing preparatory curricula that focused on fundamental visual
principals and the analysis of compositional structure. 1904 was a pivotal year
for Behrens and the school, when Dutch architect J. L. Mathieu Lauweriks
joined the faculty. Lauweriks had evolved a systematic approach to teaching
composition based on the dissection of a circle by a square, creating a grid of
proportional spaces. Behrens saw that this system could be used to unify
proportions within architecture and graphic design; in 1906, he applied this
theory to his exhibition pavilion and poster for the Anchor Linoleum Company.

Square and Circle / Structure Diagram

After J.L. Mathieu Lauwerijks
Author’s schematic recreation

RATIONALISM AND THE MACHINE AESTHETIC

In 1907, Behrens received a landmark design commission from the German
electrical works, AEG, to be the company’s artistic advisor. At the same time, he
participated in the launching of the Deutsche Werkbund, or German Association
of Craftsmen. Inspired by Morris but embracing, rather than rebelling against,
the machine, the Werkbund sought to invent a universal culture through the
design of everyday objects and furnishings. Behrens’s industrial-design projects
through the Werkbund coincided with his association with AEG. In addition to
designing AEG’s teakettles and lighting fixtures, he also designed their visual
identity, the first known design system for an industrial corporation. Beginning
with its logo, he designed a company typeface, color schemes, posters,
advertisements, salesrooms, and manufacturing facilities. Every item was
articulated over a specific set of proportions and linear elements, organizing
AEG’s visual presentation into a harmonic whole.

Product Sell-Sheet / AEG Identity System

After Peter Behrens
Author’s schematic recreation

CONSTRUCTIVISM
The new visual language and its philosophy were attracting students and
designers from abroad, as well as finding sympathetic participants. Russia’s
political upheaval of the early 1900s found a voice in abstraction: a movement
rooted in pure geometry, called Suprematism, merged with Cubism and Futurism
to generate Constructivism, an expression of Russia’s quest for a new order.
Seeking out instruction in Germany, a young Russian Constructivist, El (Lazar
Markovich) Lissitsky, found himself in Darmstadt studying architecture,
absorbing the rationalist aesthetic that was prevalent there. His studies kept him
in Western Europe throughout World War I and for the duration of the Russian
Revolution. In 1919, while the Bolsheviks were fighting for domination in the
post-Tsarist civil war, Lissitsky went home and applied himself to politically
driven graphic design that was characterized by dynamic, geometrically
organized composition. His seminal poster, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge,
epitomizes the abstract communicative power of form and typifies the work of
the Russian avant-garde from this period.
THE BAUHAUS AND THE NEW ORDER
As the war in Europe ended, designers and architects turned their attention to
rebuilding and moving forward. In Germany, the 1919 reopening of the formerly
prestigious Weimar Arts and Crafts School began with the appointment of
architect Walter Gropius, one of Peter Behrens’s former apprentices, as its new
director. Gropius recast the school as the Staatliches Bauhaus—the State Home
for Building. Here, experimentation and rationalism became the tools for
building the new social order. Although the curriculum initially drew on
expressionism—influenced by the Blaue Reiter painters who developed the
preliminary training courses, Johannes Itten and Wassily Kandinsky—it
gradually moved away from the personal and painterly.
___ The Bauhaus students and faculty came under the influence of the Swiss
painter Theo van Doesburg, whose de Stijl movement followed a strict dogma of
geometry. Van Doesburg made contact with Gropius in 1920, and although
Gropius decided against hiring him because of his overt dogma, van Doesburg
contributed significantly to the aesthetic change in the Bauhaus by moving to
Weimar and hosting discussions and lectures.
___ Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, a Hungarian Constructivist, eventually replaced Itten
as head of the preliminary course in 1923. In the type shop, Moholy’s
experimentation with asymmetrical layouts, photomontage, and elements from
the type case expanded the geometric expression of Modernism in graphic
design. Moholy and his students—in particular, Herbert Bayer—used bars, rules,
squares, and type asymmetrically composed on a grid as the basis of a new
typography. Lissitsky returned from Russia numerous times, establishing contact
with the Bauhaus and participating in lectures, book designs, and exhibitions.
His 1924 book, The Isms of Art, is a watershed in grid development. Separated
by heavy rules, the concurrently running text in three languages is organized into
columns; images, captions, and folios are integrated into the overall structure,
placed according to a distinct set of orthogonal alignments.
___ As pervasive as these developments in design seem, they had yet to be
assimilated into mainstream design practice. The use of asymmetric
composition, sans serif typefaces, and geometric organization of information
were known to a relative few in the arts and education. For the most part, the
commercial world was oblivious. Developments in American and European
advertising had helped introduce columnar composition into production of
newspapers and periodicals; most printers and designers, however, were still
visually in the nineteenth century.

Kandinsky: Jubiläums-Austellung / Poster

Herbert Bayer
©2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS) New York/V.G. Bild-Kunst, Bonn

DISSEMINATING ASYMMETRY
A young calligrapher, Jan Tschichold, changed that. While working as a staff
designer for the German publisher Insel Verlag, Tschichold happened upon the
first Bauhaus exhibition of 1923. Within a year he had assimilated the school’s
typographic approach and abstract sensibility. In 1925, he designed a twenty-
four-page insert for the Typographische Mitteilungen, a German printers’
magazine, which demonstrated these ideas to a large audience of typesetters,
designers, and printers. Elementare Typographie, as it was titled, generated a
tremendous enthusiasm for asymmetric and grid-based layout. Tschichold
advocated a reductive and intrinsically functional aesthetic. He asserted that
stripping away ornament, giving priority to sans serif type that made the
structure of letterforms explicit, and creating compositions based on the verbal
function of words were goals that would liberate the modern age. Negative
spaces, the intervals between areas of text, and the orientation of words to each
other formed the basis for design consideration. Taking his cues from Lissitsky
and the Bauhaus, he deliberately built his compositions on a system of vertical
and horizontal alignments, introducing hierarchical grid structure in documents
from posters to letterheads. As early as 1927, the year before he published his
landmark book Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography), Tschichold
codified this idea of structure and advocated its use to standardize printing
formats. The current European DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung, the
German Institute for Standardization) system of paper formats—in which each
format, folded in half, yields the next-smaller format—is based on this system.
Elementaire Typographie / Insert Cover
After Jan Tschichold
Author’s schematic recreation, presented in English translation

TOWARD NEUTRALITY
The developing design aesthetic in Europe was abruptly sidetracked, however, in
the 1930s. Designers and artists who used the new visual language were arrested
or forced to leave as the Nazis gained power and labeled them degenerates. The
Bauhaus officially closed in 1932, and Moholy-Nagy, Gropius, Mies van der
Bauhaus officially closed in 1932, and Moholy-Nagy, Gropius, Mies van der
Rohe (Peter Behrens’s other apprentice from before WWI), Bayer, and others
left the continent for America; Tschichold, after being arrested and held by the
Nazis for a short period, moved to Switzerland, which remained neutral and
generally unaffected by the war; its mountainous terrain and iron grip on
international banking kept it safe from being overrun by the Nazis.
___ Along with Tschichold, several Bauhaus students had come to Switzerland.
Max Bill, who had begun school at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich and had
studied at the Bauhaus between 1927 and 1929, returned home in 1930; as did
Theo Ballmer, another Bauhaus student who worked in the type shop. Their
influence was strong. Swiss designers had been steadily developing a tradition
that emphasized reductive techniques and symbolic representation, epitomized
by the work of plakatstijl designer Ernst Keller. Ballmer and Bill instigated a
transition toward constructive ideas through work based on strict mathematical
measurement and spatial division. Max Bill’s contribution was twofold: first, by
applying his math-based theories to professional projects in advertising and
corporate identity; and second, by instituting the grid through helping to found
the influential Ulm School of Applied Arts in Germany in 1950. Bill’s work and
teaching would help to ingrain the grid in generations of designers.
Die Neue Grafik [New Graphic Design]/Periodical cover / Hierarchy schematic
After Josef Müller-Brockmann, Richard Paul Lohse, and Carlo Vivarelli
Author’s schematic recreation

THE WILL TO ORDER

This more austere approach was taken up by Josef Müller-Brockmann, Carlo
Vivarelli, Hans Neuberg, and Richard Paul Lohse who, in their individual
practices, were actively seeking a universal visual expression. As editors of the
Zurich-published Neue Grafik, they collaborated in exposing this international
style to the rest of the world. The grid created for Neue Grafik contained four
columns and three horizontal bands, or spatial zones, which organized all of the
content, including images. When it was first iterated, Neue Grafik marked a
development in grid-based design that was already in the making: the realization
of a module—a small unit of space which, through repetition, integrates all parts
of a page.
___ Müller-Brockmann forsook imagery in favor of pure constructions of type
based on grids. In 1960, he published his first book, The Graphic Artist and His
Design Problems, in which he first describes this form of grid-based design. His
second book, Grid Systems in Graphic Design, is nothing short of a manifesto:
“The grid system implies the will to systematize, to clarify, the will to penetrate
to the essentials ... the will to cultivate objectivity rather than subjectivity.”
___ The rational Zurich aesthetic represents the Swiss International Style with
which most designers are familiar. In contrast, designers associated with Basel’s
Allgemeine Gewerbeschule (or School of Design) pursued an approach that,
although grounded in a similar notion of universality, focused on symbolic form
and contrasting optical qualities in abstraction. The Basel approach would come
to play a more significant role in an eventual shift away from grid-based
approaches (see here). Integrating type with image was fundamental to the
school’s curriculum, however. In 1942, Zurich-trained Emil Ruder joined the
AGS as a typography teacher.
___ Ruder advocated a balance between function and nuanced formal
relationships; grid structure was one of a number of these. His methodology
instilled an exhaustive process of visual problem solving in his students—one of
whom was Karl Gerstner, who formed his own practice in Zurich and
contributed to the evolution of the grid into a mainstay of modern design
practice. In 1968, Gerstner published his first book, Designing Programmes.
“The typographic grid,” he wrote, “is a proportional guideline for text, tables,
pictures, etc. It is a formal program, a priori for ‘x’ unknown contents. The
problem: to find the balance between a maximum of conformity with a
maximum of freedom. Or: the highest number of constants combined with the
greatest possible variability.”
Grid Systems in Graphic Design / Book spread
Josef Müller-Brockmann
Originally published by Niggli Verlag, Zurich, 1962
Zürcher Maler [Zurich Painters] / Poster
Emil Ruder
Reproduced from Typography, published by Niggli Verlag, Zurich, 1960

THE CORPORATE GRID

Grid use began to dominate European and American design during and after the
1960s. It was an especially effective way to orchestrate communications
programs for large organizations, events, or corporations. The German designer
Otl Aicher implemented a program of even greater precision for Lufthansa, the
Otl Aicher implemented a program of even greater precision for Lufthansa, the
German airline. Collaborating with Tomás Gonda, Fritz Quereng, and Nick
Roericht, Aicher anticipated Lufthansa’s every potential need, standardizing
formats and rigorously enforcing the grid to unify communications of different
scale, materials, and production constraints. Detailed manuals ensured visual
uniformity in every application.
___ Max Bill, Müller-Brockmann, Otl Aicher, and other exponents of the
International Style were joined in their efforts by their Dutch, English, Italian,
and American counterparts. In the Netherlands, the movement toward program-
oriented design was spear-headed by Wim Crouwel, Ben Bos, and Bruno
Wissing, whose firm Total Design became a model in its practice of grid-based
communications programs for corporations and cultural institutions. In America,
students of the Swiss schools and a number of European emigrants brought the
International Style—and the grid—to a vast audience. Paul Rand, the pioneer of
Modern design in America in the early 1940s, had been instrumental in
convincing business that design was good for them. In his 1965 design manuals
for Westinghouse, Rand developed complex grids to ensure continuity in such
diverse media as packaging, print advertising, and television.
___ The idea of a totality in design, based on a grid, also found expression in the
work of Massimo Vignelli and his wife, Lella, who had founded an office for
design in Milan in 1960. Both trained as architects, they established their vision
of a seamlessly organized, systematic structural approach early in their careers.
Massimo, in particular, had begun extensive exploration of grid structures for
various cultural organizations and corporate entities in Milan. These early
projects guided Vignelli toward an approach that focused on dividing space
within a modular grid into semantically distinct, horizontal zones. The additional
system of division—given visual weight in the form of solid bands—allowed
greater focus within the overall modular structure; the eye could be taught to
direct itself to find specific information.
___ The VIgnellis were instrumental in cementing grid-based design philosophy
throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s through a variety of endeavors in corporate
identity, publication and book design, and interiors: From helping found the
design collaborative Unimark International in 1965, which standardized
communications for a legion of corporate giants (among them Xerox, J.C.
Penney, Alcoa, Ford, and Steelcase); to creating the Unigrid system for the U.S.
National Park Service—which established a modular grid, divided by horizontal
bands and encompassing twelve formats that could be imposed on a single
standard-sized sheet of paper to reduce waste; to systematizing the New York
City subway’s map and signage system, along with hundreds of other corporate
and cultural projects they completed as Vignelli Associates.
and cultural projects they completed as Vignelli Associates.
___ By the late 1970s, formatting corporate communications in a grid was an
expected approach to achieving visual continuity. Corporate identity firms like
Anspach Grossman Portugal in New York City typified this approach with its
1976 identity program for Citibank and similar corporate clients. The
International Style had come to be an accepted part of what graphic design was
about, and the grid an important tool that is intrinsic to effective communication.
___ Amidst a proliferation of new approaches that owes some debt to the digital
revolution of the 1980s and 90s, the British design group 8vo helped reestablish
awareness of structural thinking through their periodical journal Octavo, which
addressed typographical issues in a series of eight editions; newer firms like
MetaDesign, Una, and Method have steadfastly continued to investigate
organizational methods that derive from the International Style. In the wake of
the transition into the twenty-first century, the use of grids that developed over
the last 150 years has continued to play a significant role in design thinking. The
Internet has proven to be a medium that can benefit from grid-based thinking as
a way of simplifying the vertiginous act of navigating through interactive
information; indeed, in the time since this book was first published, grid use has
become pervasive within UX design.
___ How media and design will develop over the next 150 years is difficult to
imagine, given its recent pace—but the typographic grid is likely to help
designers structure communications for some time to come.
Vorm Gevers [Designers] / Poster
Wim Crouwel
Courtesy of Total Design, Amsterdam
Piccolo Teatro di Milano / Poster
Massimo Vignelli
Courtesy of Massimo Vignelli
UniGrid / Publication system
Vignelli Associates
Courtesy of Massimo Vignelli
Citibank / Identity manual pages
Anspach Grossman Portugal
Courtesy of Enterprise IG
Design in Michigan / Poster, from a series
Katherine McCoy
Courtesy of Katherine McCoy

Octavo / Publication
8vo
Courtesy of Simon Johnston
elnacional.cat / Online news site
Atlas, Balearic Islands, Spain
Courtesy of Atlas
Grid Basics
Fundamental Concepts of Page Structure

A grid consists of a distinct set of alignment-based relationships that serves as

a guide for distributing elements across a format: where they may be placed;
their height-to-width proportions; and, ultimately, the ease with which a
viewer can navigate the layout. A grid’s orthogonal (90° axis) logic, and all the
thinking about how to work with it, derive from the fundamental verbivisual
qualities of type. Choosing or developing a grid for a project depends on
understanding these qualities, knowing what kinds of grids there are, and the
possibilities for how type (and images) might interact within the structure.
Although grids may seem overtly mathematical, the notion of this structural approach grows
quite organically from the nature of typographic form.
———
At its most fundamental level, type is a system of vertical lines (these being the primary element
of all the letters in the Western alphabet). Sequenced side by side to form words, and then
sentences, the verticals form a horizontal line. Stacking horizontal sentences below each other
creates a new vertical line—the column—and columns appearing side by side establish yet
another horizontal structure.
Within the format, alignments between elements create structure. In these compositions, space is
divided based on content: like information is grouped together, disparate information is
separated; their resulting widths and heights subdivide the surrounding field. Changes in weight
and scale introduce hierarchy—visual ordering—to the information. Groupings may give rise to a
single axis that divides the space into two simple fields, as in the example at top; or they may
establish numerous axes and, hence, more complex subdivisons. Within strict limitations, an
enormous variety of possible layouts can be imagined. These, for example, both use the same
type family and only a selection of possible sizes.
Typographic space is governed by the part-to-whole relationships that alignments define but,
more importantly, by the relation of positive and negative they create. Thinking structurally
about layouts means being able to see not only the forms, or positive elements, but negative
spaces—“white space,” as it’s often called—as shapes of equal importance in the composition. A
grid organizes space as much as it does the stuff that’s in it. In this book spread, the negative
spaces actively enhance the up-and-down vertical rhythm of columns as a counterpoint to the
strong horizontal axis that links various column parts together across the spread; being mostly
horizontal in proportion, they echo that quality of the image.
Timothy Samara / USA
The Anatomy of Pages

Format Structures
All page-layout conventions descend from the book format that developed between the fall of the
Roman Empire in 476 CE and the European Renaissance of the 15th century. Its predecessor was
the codex, a scroll folded accordion-style to fit neatly between protective boards. A rolled scroll
presented a continuous field of text, but the codex necessitated breaks in text to prevent it from
traveling over the folded foredges—hence, the familiar block of text, surrounded by open space,
as well as left and right sides, eventually resulting in what we recognize as pages. A left-hand
page and a right-hand page together define a spread. Over time, the components of the book
format page structure evolved to become more complex, all denoted by specific terms.

1 The body is the structure itself, whether it is defined as a single, wide block for continuous text,
or is broken into multiple subdivisions—columns or modules—as shown in the page structure
diagram opposite.
2 Margins are the negative spaces between the format edges and the content, that surround and
define the live area where type and images will be arranged. Margins have different names based
on where they’re located.

3 The runner is a navigational notation; it typically identifies the publication’s title and author. If
it appears at the head (top) of the page, it’s called a running head or header; if it appears at the
foot (bottom) of the page, it’s called a running foot, or footer. If it appears along the foredges of
the pages, at the sides, it’s called a running side.

4 The page number is called a folio. Be aware that some contemporary editors use this term to
refer to the combination of the page number and runner as a unit.

In the Web’s early days, programming limitations meant a page could be subdivided into simple,
table-based fields to differentiate content from navigation, or areas of different content.
Nowadays, everything is possible, so book-format conventions have at last come to the fore. A
webpage is, after all, just another editorial medium. Current Web formats define margins around
a body that emphasizes columns, rather than rows, as a way of controlling alignment
relationships that will accommodate responsiveness (see more about the section Building a Grid:
For Interaction Design).
1 The header is an area of shallow depth, spanning the browser width, typically reserved for
titling and branding material.

2 The body of most webpages is inset by margins all around. The dimension of the head margin
typically remains constant, while those of the side margins contract as the browser closes or as
the page reorients to a smaller device, such as a tablet or smartphone.

3 The footer is a shallow area at the bottom of the page, typically used for secondary information:
addresses, contacts, and so on.

Both the header and the footer may be set to scroll with the page area, or to be pinned, so as to remain
in fixed positions at the browser’s edges.
Page Structure
A grid, in essence, is what happens inside the margins of an individual page, within the body.
———
Contemporary page design conventions consider diminished margins in order to maximize the
body, accommodating more content and subdividing it for greater control.
———
Every grid contains the same basic parts, no matter how complex the grid becomes. These parts
can be combined as needed or omitted from the overall structure at the designer’s discretion, and
the proportions of the parts are similarly dependent on the designer’s needs.
1 Columns are vertical alignments of type that create horizontal divisions between the outside
margins. There can be any number of columns; sometimes they are all the same width, and
sometimes they are different widths. Each column is separated from its neighbors by a channel of
space called a column gutter.

2 Flowlines are alignments that break the space into horizontal bands. Flowlines help guide the
eye across the format and can be used to impose additional stopping and starting points for text
or images. There may one flowline or several.

3 Rows result from numerous flowlines set at regular, repeated intervals from head margin to foot
margin. Such horizontal rows intersect the vertical columns, further subdividing space and
creating a counterpoint to the columns’ vertical emphasis. Rows also are separated by channels
of space, the row gutters.

4 Modules are individual units of space created by the intersection of columns and rows.
Considered another way: columns and rows result from a grouping of modules.

5 Spatial zones are groups of columns, rows, and/or modules that form distinct fields. Each field
can be assigned a specific role for displaying information; for example, one horizontal field might
be reserved for images, and the field below it might be reserved for a series of text columns.

6 Markers are placement indicators for subordinate or consistently appearing text, such as
running heads, section titles, folios, or any other element that consistently occupies only one
location in any sequence or series of layouts.
The Manuscript Grid

The block, or manuscript, grid is structurally the simplest kind of grid: It consists
of a single, relatively large text block on each page of a spread, and its purpose is
to accommodate extensive continuous text, like a book or long essay. An
occasional image may be situated within the text area if need be; if the margins
are ample, they may provide a place for notes, spot illustrations, or other
editorial features that don’t occur regularly and, therefore, don’t really warrant
the articulation of additional columns.
___ As its name implies, the manuscript grid developed from the tradition of
written manuscript that led to book printing, and so carries with it a kind of
classical quality that viewers will often interpret as historical, authoritative,
institutional, or formal—a consideration that might be useful for one kind of
project, but contrary to the goals of another that aims for a more contemporary
feel.
These manuscript grid diagrams show the range of content distribution possible even with such a
simple structure. The size of the text block may vary, relative to the size of the page; the margins
surrounding it may be even, or dramatically different in width—causing the block to sit high or
low on the page, closer to the gutter or further away, toward the foredges. Further, the margins
may situate the text blocks symmetrically or asymmetrically across the page gutter. Adding a
flowline offers the possibility of separating titling or other elements.
The text block on this page detail of a cosmetics brochure is set low on the page, with an
extremely deep head margin. Text seen on both sides of the translucent page—broken at specific
intervals—suggests the presence of flowlines.
Tolleson Design/USA
Dramatic margins, line and marker details, and strong contrasts in typographic weight create
unexpected interest within this otherwise conventional manuscript grid.
In[Corporate GmbH/Germany

This page spread shows evidence of nested, or doubled, bodies, each with its own set of margin
measures—narrower ones for actual text, and more generous ones for the grouping of photos.
Sagmeister+Walsh/USA
The grid used for this exhibition catalogue essay spread positions the text block asymmetrically
on each page, in contrast to the other works shown here. Note that the folios and runners follow
suit, also arranged asymmetrically relative to the spread.
Lynn Fylak/USA
The Column Grid

Information that is discontinuous benefits from being organized into a grid of

multiple columns. Because columns can be dependent on each other for running
text, independent for small blocks of text, or crossed over to make wider
columns, the column grid is very flexible and can be used to separate different
kinds of information. For example, some columns may be reserved for running
text and large images, while captions may be placed in an adjacent column.
___ Although their widths must always correspond to those of one or more
columns (edge to edge), both images and chunks of text may be of any depth,
and positioned freely within the margins from top to bottom of the page; a
designer may choose to align them at times, or not at all. If a designer wants or
needs consistent horizontal alignments—for the location of titles, as opposed to
that of the beginning of text—he or she defines a flowline (or more than one) to
denote a place for such alignments. The more constants needed, for whatever
reason, the more flowlines to be incorporated.
The column grids diagrammed here are but a tiny fraction of the kinds of structure that fall into
this category of grid.
Three-column grids are ubiquitous in publishing, both print and online—they’re a real workhorse
when it comes to flexibility, are simple to work with, and familiar to a broad audience, so easily
navigated. The one shown here demonstrates these qualities, as well as the potential for
compositional dynamism offered by this go-to structure. The presence of three strong flowlines
creates horizontal emphasis in contrast to the overall verticality of the page.
Ideas On Purpose/USA
A precise four-column grid doesn’t necessarily preclude dynamic layout. In this particular spread,
the scale change of typographic elements is a foil to the grid.
Frost*collective/Australia

This publication also demonstrates the column grid’s flexibility and usefulness for distinguishing
between different kinds of information.
There are 8 columns in the grid. What appears to be a wide, asymmetrical left margin is actually
two of the grid’s narrow columns combined. It’s used for captions and callouts, while the grid’s
remaining six columns are divided into two groups of three—for primary text. It’s important to
always bear in mind that several narrower columns may be combined to create the appearance of
wider ones.
Nakano Design Office/Japan
The Modular Grid

For extremely complex projects involving many different kinds of information, a

modular grid may be the most useful choice. A modular grid is a column grid
with a large number of horizontal flowlines that subdivide the columns into
rows, creating a matrix of cells called modules. Each module defines a small
chunk of informational space. Grouped together, these modules define larger
chunks of space, all proportionally related to each other, as well as areas called
spatial zones, to which specific roles may be assigned. The degree of control
within the grid depends on the size of the modules. Smaller modules provide
more flexibility and greater precision, but too many subdivisions can become
confusing or redundant.
___ Aside from its practical uses, the modular grid has developed a conceptual,
aesthetic image associated with the rationalist ideals of the Bauhaus and Swiss
International Style. Designers who embrace these ideals sometimes use modular
grids to convey this rationalism as an interpretive overlay to a given
communication—even for projects with simple informational needs.
Module proportions can be vertical or horizontal in proportion, and determined in a variety of
ways. Modular grids are described with a notation that marks the number of columns present and
the number of rows (C# × R#).
The modular grid that holds the abstracted letters of this logo together create a maze of
interlocking strokes and spaces that conceptually supports the narrative suggested by the client’s
name.
Piscatello Design Centre/USA
A simple modular grid provides the basic component shape and organization of these sign panels.
They can be combined in any configuration, for any given need at a particular location.
Poulin+Morris/USA
Even a simple, or “loose,” grid of three columns and three rows—referred to as a 3 x 3 modular
grid—can give rise to a tremendous number of shapes in the way the modules are combined.
Why Not Associates/UK

The exceptionally precise, or “tight” modular grid here consists of 9 columns and 14 rows, or 126
modules on each page. A quick glance at the spread’s layout shows a large variety of content
types in a range of proportions and numerous spatial zones—with plenty of separation between
each.
Willi Kunz Studio/USA
A modular grid also lends itself to the design of tabular information, like charts, forms, or
schedules. The rigorous repetition of the module helps integrate them with the structure of
surrounding text and image material.
Cahan & Associates/USA
The Hierarchic Grid

Sometimes the visual and informational needs of a project require an odd grid
that doesn’t fit into any category. These grids—called hierarchic grids—conform
to the needs of the information they organize, but they are based more on an
intuitive placement of alignments customized to the various proportions of the
elements, rather than on regular repeated intervals. Column widths, as well as
the intervals between them, vary depending on context and use; they may make
use of several rows grouped together in only one part of a format, joined by a
single column; or they may consist only of broad, simple divisions defined by a
few guidelines. Whether used to build books, posters, or webpages, it’s an
organic approach to ordering information in space that still holds all of the parts
together architecturally with clear, orthogonal relationships.
The dynamic content of most websites requires a flexibility of width and depth that precludes a
strict modular approach, but still requires a standardization, or templating, of alignments and
display areas. This website for a museum breaks the page space into three major horizontal
zones, and then subdivides the middle zone left to right to create areas specifically for text and
image content.
Swim Design/USA
The hierarchic grid of this promotional book for a graphic design program orders information in
two columns: a wide one for text and primary images, and a narrow one for captions and
secondary, or support, images. The proportions of the two columns are independent of each
other, and content can spread across the width of both columns combined.
Level Design Group/USA

A simple hierarchic grid, consisting of a wide and narrow column—broken by a single flowline—is
used to structure layouts for applications in this museum’s identity materials. The grid’s lateral
orientation (wide column left, narrow column right, as seen in the brochure covers) is flipped in
the opposite direction when applied to the design of the letterhead, below.
Sagmeister+Walsh/USA
Compound Grids

Sometimes—to address content issues or to achieve a desired look—a designer

might use multiple grids in the same project, either between sections or even
within a single page spread. Each grid can be assigned a particular kind of
content to organize, or material can be articulated across divisions within the
multiple grids. Working with several grids together can take several directions.
___ The first option is simply to use two or more different grids that share outer
margins, adjusting their internal alignments and widths or depths to correspond
somewhat, or allowing them to be arbitrary. A second possibility is to overlay
grids whose margins are each independent of the others; perhaps some of their
internal alignments correspond—or not. A third option is to combine grids on a
single page but to separate them for specific purposes. For example, primary text
or images might occupy a three-column grid in the upper two-thirds of the page,
but a five-column grid might hold captions or other secondary content in the
lower third of the page.

Each row of these grid diagrams shows one of the compound grid varieties described here:
___
Top Two grids sharing outer margins
___

Middle Two grids with different margins

___

Bottom Two grids separated spatially across the format

In an unusual deviation from regular modular grids, where the same module governs every page
regardless of the information being presented, this small-format annual report uses three
separate articulations of a modular grid, each with its own module proportion. The differences in
margin measure between each grid correspond to the dimensions of the smallest-module grid,
which is shown explicitly as a graphical element overlaying the portrait on the right-hand page of
the spread at bottom. Different combinations of the three grids, corresponding to the page
spreads, are shown.
Ideas On Purpose/USA
Image Behavior

Options

The geometric simplicity of rectilinear images (or graphical planes) offers the
easiest way to first understand how a grid manages visual material within its
structure.
___ All the instances shown below are possible—and more. The basic rule to
follow is this: The edges of images align with the edges of columns, left-to-right,
and they align with the edges of rows, top-to-bottom. It’s OK for images to
overlap each other, and to bleed off the page (even across the page gutter)—so
long as they adhere to the column and row alignments whenever they fall within
the body of the structure.
A common error is to allow an image’s edges to fall somewhere in the middle of a column or row.
Sometimes it looks better that way. Fine, then—add more columns or rows so that proportional
alignment option becomes available as part of the structure.
Alignment Logic

In a column grid without flowlines to constrain them, images may be of any depth and slide up
and down the columns without aligning horizontally at any point.
As soon as flowlines are introduced, one must assume there’s a need to create horizontal
alignments—in which case, images can hang from them, dropping to whatever depth; sit on them;
or be proportioned by the distance between them (if there are more than one).
Always keep in mind that images can cross from one column (or row) to another—and that means
they can overlap each other at different sizes, in different proportions, and so on.
Silhouettes and Full Bleeds

Silhouetted images and those cropped into irregular shapes are perfectly fine, but the designer
must ensure that they “feel” as though they’re aligned with guides or that they’re proportionally
related to grid widths and depths—which means “eyeballing” them until they look right.
Images that fill an entire page or spread from edge to edge can be made to relate to the
underlying grid through careful sizing and cropping—so that key visual features align with a
column or row guide, or refer to widths or depths evident in adjacent elements.
Text, of course, can be set on top of an image (so long as there’s enough contrast between their
relative values for the text to be legible). In such cases, the text’s visual qualities must play off
those of the image while it’s still following the structure underneath.
Text Behavior

Options

Similar to the way images should correspond to a grid’s alignment guides, so too
should text—regardless whether it is a headline, a deck, running text, a callout,
or caption. Text set flush-left should have its aligned edge positioned along the
left edge of a column; the right-hand edge of its bounding box should butt up
against the right-hand edge of a column. Column gutters and row gutters exist to
keep text separate when being articulated side by side (unless, of course, the text
is purposely being made to cross from a column originating within a negative
space over a column into an area occupied by an image). A single paragraph or
column of text always begins from the top edge guideline of a row—or “hangs”
from it—but it may similarly cross through a lower row, or even end in the
middle of a row. Text is organic: When it runs out, it runs out.
___ Despite how limiting those rules sound, the possibilities for how type may
be shaped on a grid—wide or narrow, rising and falling—are endless. Because a
well-considered grid with an adequate number of columns provides so many
possible permutations in an arrangement, a designer has precise control over
how he or she proportions and positions each kind of information. Running text
can be easily differentiated from captions, or from callouts, simply by virtue of
assigning each a particular column-based width. The grid’s organizing logic not
only promotes visual flexibility and contrast, but clarity of informational
hierarchy as a result.
Special Cases and Logic Oddities

Ragged text creates a soft, irregular edge that won’t quite fill out columns. The irregularity of the
rag’s shape becomes more pronounced at larger text sizes—for instance, in a headline or title. It’s
OK: a well-placed element will help optically “mark” or “complete” the right edge of the column.
Textual inclusions—such as initial caps and callouts that invade the regular text structure—should
correspond to grid increments... or very clearly not conform to them.
Setting text centered-axis often results in the text appearing unrelated to column alignments. The
closer the overall width of such a text element to a recognizable column width, the better;
aligning its central axis to a clearly demarcated column edge guide can only help it appear well
integrated.
Bullets are best set to “hang” to the left of a column alignment, as are quotation marks when they
occur at the beginning of a line of text. Not doing so disrupts the clarity of the aligned edge—in
short, it looks sloppy.
If a column of text is crossing over several rows, and there are paragraph breaks within it, they
need not fall at a row guideline. Causing them to do so is a possibility, but it results in awkward
separations within the column and an overly self-conscious quality to the layout’s typography.
Hanging indents (sometimes referred to as “outdents”) are a distinctive typographic gesture that
require wider column gutters, or careful positioning in a column far away from the one that
precedes it.
Subdividing Space

Flowlines

As mentioned previously, it’s not necessary to introduce flowlines into a column

grid—but they certainly help contribute horizontal movement and structure that
contrasts the up-and-down movement of the columns.
___ Beyond the visual respite against verticality, flowlines also create
opportunities to educate the viewer as to how the information within the visual
field works: Flowlines may help a viewer identify where to begin reading; they
might anchor the titles or callouts to particular depths on the page, to help
identify them as such, or to create a strong hierarchic pause begin title and text;
they may delineate relationships between seemingly unrelated elements, such as
an image and text that refers to it; and they may also define simple spatial zones
without resorting to using a modular grid, which may be overly complicated for
a relatively simple informational hierarchy or more continuous text.
___ Furthermore, flowlines help build consistency in compositonal movement
and rhythm from page to page (whether printed or screen-based), and from
spread to spread among page sequences. In using them, a designer has the
potential to enhance a sense of continuity among very disparate parts of a
publication, or the opposite:
Different flowlines used in each part or section will signal those sections’
differences and aid readers in identifying them, or distingushing them from each
other at a glance.
The stark two-column vertical emphasis in this brochure is visually countered by two flowlines
that define positions for two kinds of captions relating to the images above them.
Level Design Group/USA

Flowlines help readers distinguish the beginning of an article—where text hangs from the page’s
vertical center—from the continuation of an article, in which text fills the columns to the margins.
The lower flowline also partitions the page to allow for dramatic pullquotes and to align text and
a sidebar.
Studio Blue/USA
Spatial Zones

Spatial zones are areas within a page or spread that are designated for specific
functions, or assigned particular kinds of content, as a means of both
invigorating layouts and helping readers navigate. In a pure column grid,
horizontal zones can be defined with a flowline or two; a particular column or a
group of columns can establish vertical zones. In a modular grid, groups of rows
or columns accomplish the same goals. Alternatively, a designer might add an
extra flowline or vertical guideline independent of the grid’s basic structure—
purposely interrupting its regularity to more dramatically emphasize the zone’s
presence. Further, modules may be grouped in mosaic-like patterns to create
stepped or irregularly-shaped zones.
___ In essence, spatial zones add some of the qualities of a hierarchic grid into
grids defined by regular intervals. Spatial zones are especially useful for
separating continuous text from recurring sidebars or info-graphics, or for
helping correlate the text of a step-based process with images that illustrate the
steps that it describes.

Most websites, like this one, define spatial zones that act as templates for areas of different
functionality—navigation versus content, for example. Here, three horizontal bands serve that
purpose; vertical sub-zones in the lower two bands create greater specificity of function.
Meta Design SF/USA
The layout of this book that teaches printmaking processes divides the spread into two zones with
a single flowline across a multicolumn grid: text describing steps to follow below, images above.
Images are permitted to occasionally cross that boundary for the sake of variety.
Timothy Samara/USA
Detailing: Editorial, Hierarchic, Stylistic

Notational Elements

Many designers neglect such elements as folios and runners, but they’re
critically important to consider because they typically occupy the same location
on every page or every spread. In a website, the navigation is the corresponding
informational component on the page (folios and runners are, it’s worth noting,
the print version of navigation).
___ The consistency of these elements’ presence means they can easily become
distracting, so they require adequate spatial separation from text or other content.
Their chosen locations will often frustrate designers by preventing them from
placing images or other content where they feel it’s best, because the folio or
runner is there. Their positions, sizes, and styles dramatically influence the
proportions of margins in which they’re placed (usually forcing the margin
measure to increase so as to keep text from getting uncomfortably close).
___ And, they’re visual forms: Folios become dots, visually, and runners
become lines—extending a certain length, being light or dark in weight, moving
horizontally or vertically. To integrate seamlessly, yet dynamically, into layouts,
notational elements must be positioned, first and foremost, with respect to the
grid’s divisions. Equally important is that they feel like they’re in dialogue with
the remainder of the layout’s compositional qualities and stylistically related to
the typography. Many designers follow the convention of setting folios in the
lower corners of the spread, but there are many ways to position notational
elements such that they’re easy to find and interesting to look at. There are,
despite what any jaded art director or editor tells you, no actual rules for how to
do so.

Folios and runners can exist in the margins, outside the body, column structure, or modules—as
shown in these examples. If they do, they should align to a column edge or row edge, or to a
shown in these examples. If they do, they should align to a column edge or row edge, or to a
flowline.

Folios and runners also may be integrated directly into the body, in effect by designating a row or
column within the structure as a “zone” for such elements. This approach can also be applied to
the positioning of headings in consistent locations, e.g., always hanging from the second row
from the top.
Boxes, Lines, and Dots

Graphical elements lend finesse, contrast with larger-scale elements, articulate

structure, separate clusters of material, and visually delight the eye. They extend
the details of tyopgraphic form—often buried within the bigger picture of their
shapes and textures—outward into the pictorial space to create added dialogue
between type and other kinds of material. Given that images and text behave in
certain ways relative to column and row alignments, details like boxes, lines, and
dots should too.

Dots are excellent devices for marking intersections of vertical and horizontal axes. A single dot
Dots are excellent devices for marking intersections of vertical and horizontal axes. A single dot
can anchor a piece of text from across a page to another element or simply activate a negative
space that seems awkwardly empty, without killing its visual openness.

Colored boxes and linear frames that surround text must be given adequate space. One strategy is
to extend them to the gutters; another is to slightly inset the text; yet a third is to do a little of
both. Regardless of the chosen option, text inside and outside a box should align consistently
throughout.
Lines emphasize the axes themselves, whether those of columns or row edges. Always set lines to
correspond to the grid’s alignments, rather than to a given text element’s length.
Lines are also useful for filling out, or more clearly defining, the width of a column that is occupied
by a text with extremely inconsistent line lengths—things like lists of names, or combinations of
list-like elements, notations, and running text.
Building a Grid
Making the Structure That Suits Your Needs

Every design problem is different and requires a specific grid to address it

well. The first step in constructing a reliable grid is to assess the informational
characteristics and the production requirements of the project’s 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 the nature of the images, or how many kinds of text involved, and the
relative volumes of each.

Additionally, the designer must anticipate potential problems that might

occur while laying out the content within the grid, such as unusually long
headlines, prohibitions against cropping images, dead spots left if the content
in one section runs out–or even something as simple as achieving a required
page count.

___ Once the designer thoroughly understands the content, there are a
number of strategies he or she may pursue toward realizing a workable grid
and, most often, it will mean combining two or more approaches at the same
time.
Is it possible to simply pick a grid arbitrarily and see what happens? Absolutely! What often
results is frustration upon discovering a bevy of content issues that require reworking the
structure, readjusting everything that’s already been designed, discovering new problems—and a
lot of time lost.

Rather than contemplate that kind of trial by fire, better to just design a few, well-chosen key
parts, and develop the grid from seeing the real material in action. This kind of spontaneous
approach sidesteps all the strategy and, while it will take just as long (or longer), the results will
likely be well-tailored to meeting the project’s goals.
Keeping in mind that constructing a grid is a planning process, not an implementation process,
review all of the content and choose instances that differ most widely—the sketches below were
created for a hypothetical project based on extremes of content volume and kind.

Working by hand (yes!) frees one from the mechanical qualities of working with mouse and
software, and working small prevents getting overly invested in details. The sketches are very
raw, but an overall visual concept is clear enough to proceed to the next step.
Scan the sketches (or, if working digitally, export PDFs from the page layout program and then
convert them to image file formats). Within image-editing software, overlay the sketches
transparently so as to see the elements through all the layers [top image].

You’ll discover some corresponding alignments and proportions between elements from different
layouts. Most likely, there will also be elements that don’t match up. Working from those that do
and adjusting those that don’t—splitting the difference between some that are close—construct a
column grid and add any flowlines that the composite suggests, or convert it to a modular grid for
more precise, detailed control and flexibility.

Nothing, though, can truly replace up-front planning...

Building a Grid
Considering Content Attributes

Physicalities of Format and Content

In today’s digital world, it’s easy to forget that the physical world inevitably
intrudes on the design process. This fact applies equally to digital, print, and
environmental design. A screen is a particular size, and will display only a
certain amount of information at a time. Then, there’s pixel resolution,
necessitating larger text sizes to ensure crisp legiblity. Disconcerting, too, is the
prospect of users altering their view settings and affecting spatial attributes.
___ In print and fabrication, format size is a strong determining factor for
choosing layout approaches. There’s only so much material one can fit on a
sheet of paper or on a box; clearly, the size, proportion, and shape of the medium
will influence the direction a grid takes. It might be that a given container
requires large margin measures; similarly, predetermined page counts for
publications will often determine content distribution.
___ The other side of the physical coin is the way that content can vary
tremendously from part to part within a single project. One part may involve two
images and 500 words of text, while another is 10,000 words of Q and A
dialogue with callouts, but no images. 10,000 words is a lot of text; set in a serif
at 8 points, it will exceed the equivalent of 50 A4 letter-sized pages. One might
assume that a tiny-module, 100-column grid would be the solution to
accommodating all the variables. But then, the modules would be so small as to
be insignificant. It is incumbent upon the designer to take these factors into
serious consideration up front; the more thoroughly they are understood, the
better. Limitations unaddressed can be disastrous... But, they may also happen to
lead the designer into new creative territory.
When weighing format size, shape, and other such physical factors against the requirements
imposed by content, look for best-and worst-case scenarios (by page, spread, or section) by which
to judge: compare the smallest amount of something to the largest, or the most simple
combination of content elements to the most complex.
———
Creating a matrix (like the one shown here) to map extensive content can be an especially helpful
reference—for planning page count, website wireframes, and even for project proposal budgeting
purposes.
Functional Distinctions and Complexity

As described in the “trial-by-fire” scenario on the previous spread,

understanding the nature of the content is paramount. Not all information
(meaning images, as well as text or data) is the same–different kinds require
different treatments to best display them or communicate their ideas clearly.
___ It’s really a question of usability: Clarity in understanding content
intellectually, emotionally, symbolically, contextually, and in terms of usability
all must inform how the content is arranged and sequenced. A grid’s attributes
affect these levels of understanding visually and informationally: Marked
locations, adequate widths for meaningful display, specific spatial intervals that
draw information closer or push it apart in space—a grid’s proportions and
alignments must be able to present each informational configuration in the way
that is intrinsically best for it, encompassing the diversity of means in one
comprehensive structure.
___ The relationship is reciprocal. Arbitrarily choosing a grid to fit content will
almost certainly do the information a disservice; and, the information, ill-fitted,
deprives the designer of achieving the fullest expression.
Recognizing that every level of information to be presented in a project may require specific
structural attributes—because of its depth, complexity, or particular mode of functionality—is the
first step in creating a comprehensive grid that will enfold all of those attributes.
———
Diagrammed at left are major functional components associated with print (top) and UX design
(bottom), with each coded to its relative level of complexity by depth of color.
The reciprocal relationship between content structure and communicative usability is evinced by
the annual report pages above. The designers built a grid with spatial zones to accommodate
material that ranged from in-depth business data to personal testimonies; their juxtaposition on
opposing surfaces of a flap allows the reader to experience the client’s competence and humanity
as interrelated: one begets the other and vice-versa.
InCorporate GmbH/Germany
Based on Textsetting Attributes

Designing to Read

Layout approaches vary in how they emphasize images or text, but in projects
boasting a significant amount of text, arguably the type is the most important
component. The more text is present, the more challenging it is to assimilate. It
requires more work on the part of the viewer. Basing a grid’s attributes on those
of the text’s typography ought to be considered one of the first practical
strategies to pursue when building a grid.
___ Comfortable, or optimal, text typography incorporates assessments of type
size, a font’s “color” or density, the spacing between letters, words, and lines,
and the effect of how many characters are sequenced in a single line before the
line ends. Minute shifts in these qualities of the text’s attributes promote
readability or hinder it dramatically.
___ For a majority of readers, reading text set in Times Roman at a size of 9
points poses no problem. A blanket rule for a legible point size is impossible; it
depends on the height of a given font’s lowercase letters. As a starting point, a
designer might compare the typeface he or she wants to use to a specimen of
Times Roman, set at 9 points, and adjust the desired font’s point size until the
heights of the two fonts’ lowercase letters match, even if the point size isn’t a
round number. The particular stylistic form of a font may require adjusting its
size up or down. For example, condensed typefaces have smaller counters, and
so benefit from being enlarged slightly (as well as spaced a bit more loosely).
___ Regardless of the type size or a reader’s maturity, between fifty and eighty
characters (including spaces) can be processed before a line return. With words
averaging between five and ten letters, that means approximately eight to twelve
words per line. This character count determines the width of a paragraph—for
that typeface, set in its particular size. Because the optimal character count
results in an average number of words of average length on each line*, the
presence of hyphens is greatly reduced. In ragged text, this same consistency
tends to result in a rag shape that is rhythmically regular; for justified text, the
spacing within lines tends to be regular as well, minimizing dark/light spottiness
and the appearance of rivers crossing through the paragraph.
___ The leading of the lines depends on the width of the paragraph and the type
size. The interline space** should be larger than the apparent height of the lines,
but not so large that it becomes pronounced. Similarly, the leading must not be
so tight that the reader locates the beginning of the same line after the return and
so tight that the reader locates the beginning of the same line after the return and
begins reading it again. As paragraph width increases, so must the leading—to
keep line-beginnings distinct.
* This will be true only for English; every language has its own specific optimal character count.
** Leading is an unimportant measurement. Interline space, the shape of negative, or “white,” space
between lines of text—this is what actually matters in typesetting.

This comparison of enlarged specimens of Times Roman, on the left, and Gotham, on the right,
demonstrates how the differences between the heights of the lowercase between fonts (the x-
height) can cause two fonts set at the same size to appear to be very different in size. Rather than
make sizing decisions based on numeric measure, do so optically.
For reference, shown here are comparisons of Times Roman (left-hand column) set at a size of 9
points, with a selection of various other fonts, also set 9 points in size.
A serif specimen with a small x-height, set solid (the leading measure equal to the point size)
As above, but with an extra point of leading to prevent descenders and ascenders from touching
A sans serif specimen of the same point size, but a much larger x-height and shorter ascenders and
descenders, again set solid
An optimal paragraph setting presents between 50 and 80 characters per line (approximately 65 is
usually ideal); is a comfortable size to read continuously; has a uniformly soft rag shape; and is
disrupted by only one hyphen.
Text excerpted from The Elements of Typographic Style Robert Bringhurst
The specimens above compare optimal and well-spaced, comfortable justified setting with its
jarring, poorly-set counterpart.
Based on Typesetting Attributes

Determining Column Structure

After first defining stylistic attributes for each kind of text (as outlined on the
previous page spread), use them to develop the grid’s base proportions—
beginning with a determination for the column width.
___ The first stage of this process is to find a universal width increment that all
of the optimally styled text specimens can share. The fastest way to do so is to
compare only the widths of the narrowest and widest specimens—usually, the
caption and the headline. However, the most important text style is the running
text, the one which will appear in the greatest volume, and whose readability is
most critical, because the reading of extensive, continuous text is the most
difficult. It is advisable, therefore, to compare narrowest, widest, and running
text specimen widths to assess column width relationships—but, one might as
well compare all of the specimens together for best results.
___ Following the process for finding a universal column width described below
will yield a set of increments that doesn’t account for column separation: the
gutters. The next stage is to determine what the column gutter should be. Again,
because running text will be the most ubiquitous, and most important, text style
to appear—due to the need to ensure the reader’s eye moves downward through
the text without jumping horizontally into an adjacent column—it makes the
most sense to base the column gutter measure on the requirements of the running
text.
___ Once column-and column gutter-widths are known, the last step is to
determine how many columns, including the gutters between them, will fit
within the project’s page format. The spaces that remain on either side of that
column group will form the outer and inner margin measures.
Align specimens of the type styles to the left, in a vertical stack. Draw vertical guidelines as shown
to mark their left-aligned edges, as well as each specimen’s longest line.
———
Slightly adjust the positions of the long-line guides to discover a fractional relationship between
the styles’ respective widths—where the caption width, for instance, might be one half, or one
third, that of the running text.
———
Combine fractional widths and/or split the differences to yield a single width increment that
governs all the widths as a multiple of itself: two for the caption, four for running text, and so on.
Some variance between the original text widths and new “proto-column” width will be evident;
remember that “optimal” has a character-count tolerance built in.
———
This universal increment will be the column width.
Based on the universal column width, set two deep columns of running text side by side.
———
Separate them as desired, then measure the space between their bounding boxes. Returning to
the guidelines over the specimen stack:
———
Duplicate the second guideline from the left-most one in position; then shift it rightward until the
space between the duplicate and the original matches the measurement you noted previously.
———
Move the remaining guidelines, as a group, rightward to begin at this new starting point, then
repeat the process so that you maintain consistent column widths while adding the gutter spaces
between them.
Developing Row Structure

If the project’s grid requires only columns (and, optionally, a flowline or two),
developing a row structure is unnecessary; having positioned a grouping of
columns on the page as described opposite to reveal the outer and inner margins,
all that remains is to define the margins at the top and bottom of the page. If the
project requires a modular grid, then the next step is to establish a measure for
the row and the gutters between them.
___ This process is similar to that of defining column width, but here the goal is
to define depth intervals from page top to bottom. One preliminary decision to
be made is whether the baselines of text positioned in adjacent columns should
align horizontally with each other (as they do in this book). Historically, such
baseline alignment has been considered desirable, but this is a subjective
preference. Given that each text style’s leading is likely to be different,
achieving baseline alignment among them all will be tricky; further, if
paragraphs are separated by a different leading measure than that within
contiguous text (a proportional return, rather than an intrinsic return)—and, if
there is space added before or after a hard return—baseline alignment becomes
more challenging still.
Should baseline alignment seem unimportant, the designer can define a depth
interval for rows and row gutters, decide how many rows are useful, and choose
measures for the head and foot margins as they see fit.
___ If, on the other hand, baseline alignment is desirable, the row structure must
be defined based on some commonality to be found between the various styles’
leading increments... The more involved process that is described below.

Position specimens of the text styles adjacent to each other, with the first lines of each resting on
the same baseline.
———
———
The leading measures of the various styles must be made to share a numeric relationship:
Increase and/or decrease the individual leading measures of each text style until all of the
measures are divisble by the same number.* Among the set of specimens above, all the leading
measures are multiples of 6, a relatively large number. By way of comparison, the leading
measures of the text styles used in this book are multiples of 2.1, which is small.
———
In comparing specimens, one will notice that the text of some or all of the styles share both the
top baseline and another at particular intervals.
One of these intervals is likely to be a good choice for the row depth—probably the one at which
the majority of the baselines meet up. It’s alright if not every style’s baselines meet at this
interval; the odd ones out will still show baseline alignment with the others in various instances,
just not as consistently.
———
A measure for the row gutter is typically based on the running text’s leading, but it may just as
easily be some other increment that is a multiple of the common leading number.

The last step is to fit a useful number of rows from top to bottom of the page; the remaining
spaces above and below the row set become the head margin and foot margin.

* Adjusting the leading measures means that the optimal interline spacing previously determined for each
style may change; a little extra is usually OK, but decreasing interline space may be problematic for some
styles.
Based on Typesetting Attributes

Harmonic Spacing: Micro to Macro

Yet another important consideration with regard to the quality of the typography
is the interrelationship of spacing proportions within text elements, relative to
the spaces that separate text elements and, further, to those that separate the body
from the edges of the format—the margins. When books were designed by
printers, as well as produced by them, a simple spatial ratio between the width of
the column gutters and the width of the margins came to be established: as a rule
of thumb, the margin’s width would be twice that of the gutters between
columns. The intent of this 2:1 ratio was to ensure that the group of columns
would hold together as a distinct visual unit within the margins, despite the
spaces separating them.
___ This logic speaks to the fundamental notion of space in the context of
typographic information: material that is contiguous, or more closely related in
meaning, should be closer together; and information that is not contiguous, or
unrelated in meaning, should be further apart. The printer’s spacing logic might
very well then be applied to all the different kinds of spaces that appear within,
or between, typographic components, the better to distinguish between them.
Therefore, in addition to independently determining the optimal interline spaces
in text, the separation of paragraphs, the gutters between columns and rows, and
the margins, make sure they also increase in proportion incrementally—from the
tightest (between letters) to the largest (the margins), adjusting all as needed.
This diagram shows spacing relationships among typesetting components to be achieved, ordered
from smallest [tightest]—the space between the letters within words—to the largest [loosest]—
the measure of the narrowest margin. The measurements have been enlarged for demonstration,
but are shown in relative proportion to each other.
———
As you develop optimal typesetting attributes for each kind of text, be sure to compare the
spacing that results; adjust their respective spacing as needed to maintain the scale relationships.
Correlating the Row Structure with a Baseline Grid

If the designer has decided that the baselines of text in adjacent columns are
going to align, he or she will then want to specify a baseline grid for the
document so that the text styles can be locked to it, ensuring there’s never any
misalignment. For a grid of columns, without rows, the designer may simply
define the baseline grid increment—the common leading number upon which all
the text styles’ leading measures are based—and the point at which the baseline
grid starts at the top of the page. The first guideline in the baseline grid typically
falls just under the head margin, so that an instance of the smallest text style
(like the caption) can be set to hang from the head margin and have its first line
sit on the first baseline grid guide.
___ On the other hand, for a grid with rows, specifying the parameters of the
baseline grid is a little more complicated: The guides in the baseline grid must
land precisely where the row guides, row-gutter guides, and foot-margin guides
are located. The reason is that both text and images must be able to be separated
from each other by the row gutter, but text must still be able to flow downward
in a column, through the row gutter, and remain locked to the baseline grid—
with its bottom-most line coming to rest on the foot margin. To accomplish this,
the designer will have to do some math.
To demonstrate the method for integrating the baseline grid with the row structure, the common
leading number of 6 points (from the examples in the previous image) is used, along with a
hypothetical row depth of 48 points and a row gutter depth of 12 points:

1 Leading is measured in point increments, so all depth measures will need to do so as well; in the
page layout program’s Preferences, convert all of the document’s measurements to the point
scale.

2 Determine the height of the page, measured in points. The hyothetical page shown here is 570
points in height.

3 Add up the total depth of all the rows that will fit comfortably within the page height, including
gutters between them. In this example, that’s 8 rows, totaling 468 points deep.

4 Subtract the row structure depth from the height of the page; the remainder is what is left for
the head margin and foot margin:
———
570 points minus 468 points = 102 points

5 Split the remainder to determine the measures of the head margin and foot margin. If these
margin measures seem too tight, remove a row (or reproportion the row depth based on a
different leading depth interval, following the steps on the previous page spread).
———
In this example, the remaining 102 points is split so that the head margin is 66 points deep and the
foot margin is 36 points deep.

6 Set the margins in the document. The lateral margins (to the left and right of the column
structure) were determined previously.

7 Create the document grid guides, specifying the number of columns, the measure of the column
gutters, the number of rows, and the measure of the row gutters—again, in points. Make sure that
these are set to the margins, not to the page. Check to see that the topmost row guide and the
bottom-most row guide strike the head and foot margins, respectively. If they don’t, or if the
depth of the rows or gutters is somehow off, check the math and recalculate as needed.

8 In the software’s preferences, specify the baseline grid increment (for this example, that’s one
grid line every 6 points) and set the location, in points, at which the grid will begin from the top of
the page. Check to see that the baseline grid lines land exactly on all the row guides, row-gutter
guides, and the foot margin. If they don’t, start the baseline grid at a different location and test it
again.
———
The baseline grid in the example begins at a depth of 72 points from the top of the page. This
starting point permits a caption to hang from the head margin and lock to the first grid line—
because the caption leading is 6 points.
Based on Image Proportions

Universal Proportion

Sometimes imagery, rather than text, is the focus of a project—for example, in a

poster, or in a coffee-table book. In such a case, it may be more desirable to
define the grid structure based on the proportions of the images. (Even so, the
typesetting attributes for text should still be considered, even though that aspect
will be less important.) There are several ways to think about the imagery as a
source for building a grid:
___ If the proportions of images to be included all conform to the same aspect
ratio (have the same width-to-height relationship), one might use this aspect ratio
to define the proportions of a module, and then build columns and rows based on
that proportion. Images placed on the grid that results can be scaled to sizes
defined by fields of modules; further, the proportions of typographic elements
will share this logic with the images and seem intrinsically well-related to them.
This strategy can be used for a single format project, like a poster, but the grid
can easily be instituted in other formats to systematize a campaign or as part of a
branding program. The margin measures among formats may stay the same, or
they may change around the grouping of modules; columns or rows of modules
can be removed or added to, depending on the proportion of a given format; the
entire group of modules can be scaled down as a unit to create a more detailed
grid for complex uses, like a book, or scaled up as a unit to create a simplified
version for bolder expression.
The grid for this poster is based on the proportional aspect ratio of a film still: The module is the
size and shape of one frame. You’ll notice that the row gutters are deeper in measure than the
column gutters are wide: The designer decided that, in order to maintain the cinematic,
storyboard-like flow of the images, captions for them would need to appear below, rather than to
the side of each.
Josef Müller-Brockmann Reproduced from Grid Systems in Graphic Design / Niggli Verlag, Switzerland, 1962. Courtesy of
Niggli Verlag
To demonstrate how flexible a grid built this way can be, the author developed hypothetical
alternate formats, as though the poster were part of a campaign to promote an extensive film
festival.
———
In the horizontal format, above, the same horizontal module count and margin proportions as in
the original poster are used. The vertical format, right, multiplies the module at a reduced scale,
creating new proportional relationships.
Proportional Relationships Between Images and Formats

Another way of thinking about images as a source for building a grid is how
their shapes relate to that of the format in which they’ll appear. A difference in
proportion between an image and its surrounding space can create dramatic
tension that will almost guarantee a dynamic composition, even if only one
image appears. Similar to the method described opposite, the shape of the image
can be used to define a module; comparing two images of the same or different
proportions, and finding some corresponding relationship between them, could
yield a module that allows both to be shown at different scales and creates a
more detailed grid. But, a grid built this way could just as easily consist of
columns whose measures happen to be some fractional subdivision of the
image’s width when it is sized as desired within the format area. How the
designer conceives of the image-to-format relationship, and what kind of grid or
method of deriving it is pursued, may take into account what other kinds of
content need to accompany the images. If the supporting content isn’t all that
complex or varied, a very simple structure may be perfectly useful.
A placeholder for a square-format image confronts each of the formats below (top row)—each
time revealing secondary, square-based spatial breaks in a different way, due to the differences in
the formats’ respective proportions; each gives rise to a highly individuated grid as a result.
Again, the same formats are shown but, this time, with grids based on relating two images to each
format (bottom row).
———
The square image defines precisely the same vertically shaped area to its right in each format as a
result of its changing size. The vertical space is a reference to the proportion of the second image.
This logic gives rise to a grid that correlates the proportions of both images in all three formats as
an integrated system.
Based on Image Proportions

Correlating Multiple Image Formats

When designing projects that show art work, such as monographs or exhibition
catalogues, it’s often the case that images will not be permitted to be cropped.
That limitation should not hinder the designer’s layout goals. In order to build a
useful grid that will allow for layout flexibility—without cropping inset images
—the designer must find some proportional relationship between the images to
be included. If the images are all the same format, the strategies outlined on the
preceding page spread are both workable. If the images are of many different
formats (as would be likely in a catalogue for a group exhibition), the process
becomes a bit more challenging—as is described in the hypothetical study
shown here.
The first step is to select an example of each image format and compare their relative aspect
ratios. Some formats may be related in width or depth already; others may be fractionally related
if their relative scales change—if shrinking one, for instance, to match another’s height, causes it
to be half the width of the second image.
More likely than not, the aspect ratios of the images in the group will be very different. In that
case, make the images transparent and then shift them around, changing their relative sizes, and
discover at what sizes their proportions come to refer to each other—at different scales. From
there, a module can be distilled that can form the basis of a column and row structure.
Taking into account the need for gutters between the images (which would also be needed to
separate images from text), a modular structure was distilled in which images of all proportions
could be scaled very large, for visual impact, as well as very small, for detail or support use,
without cropping any of them.
A grouping of columns and rows together was moved about within a page to determine a
comfortable proportion for the margins.
Shown here are two hypothetical page spreads using the grid developed from the image formats.
This modular structure is rather flexible; not only are a large variety of image sizes possible, but
the structure also accommodates numerous kinds of text style for additional contrast and
hierarchic clarity.
For Interaction Design

Layout in a Responsive Context

Control over layout parameters for screen-based design has come a long way
since the Internet first came online in the mid-1990s. Today, designers have
nearly the same facility for precision in Web-based layout as they do for print.
Grid use in UX design has come to the fore as the result of the need to structure
online communications to adapt to browsing within format interfaces of extreme
difference in size; the grid’s modularity lends itself to designing flexible systems
of this very nature.
___ Challenges continually arise in attempting to maintain the presence of the
structure—aided by rigorously templated development tools—while achieving a
recognizably unique visual presentation that doesn’t appear templated. Although
the limitations of device-specific screen size are typically considered from the
outset of a project with regard to functionality, a project’s look and feel are
likely developed within the desktop browser’s larger screen space—
discrepancies in the structure reveal themselves as designers work to unify
stylistic compositional aspects. Incongruities such as these—misalignments
between navigation and content areas, conflicts between symmetrical and
asymmetrical arrangements, loss of important margin area needed for particular
compositional gestures—are common problems. Resolving them well means
conceiving the grid structure from the column or module outward, rather than
reverse engineering it from a fully developed grid structure defined for the large-
browser experience.
Using default template structures or themes potentially creates two kinds of structural conflict:
———
First, between symmetry and asymmetry, which typically manifests itself in misalignments
between navigational and content elements, especially when the browser resizes; and second,
between different uses of space, which is problematic if specific layout gestures are intrinsic to a
brand’s visual identity or behavior.
———
Both kinds of conflict appear in the top examples, but are resolved in the lower examples.
A 16-column grid provides device-specific layouts in permutations of 2-, 4-, and 8-module
configuration—while supporting consistently sized and spaced navigation throughout. These
conditions could be achieved only by building the structure outward from a base grid defined by
the smallest screen format.
Atlas/Spain
For Interaction Design

Establishing a grid structure for an interactive experience should be no different

than for a brochure or newspaper; all the same considerations and methods under
discussion still apply... except that designers must now anticipate how a layout
designed for a large-format desktop monitor will translate to the small screen of
a smartphone.
———
The limited screen area of a typical smartphone (shown here at actual size)
imposes an unavoidable physical reality. However, any perceived restriction it
might impose with regard to type or image sizes is made up for by its particular
width, which will accommodate a range of legible type sizes with more or less
optimal attributes.
———
Starting with the smartphone screen format as the basis for a column structure,
then, is almost a no-brainer. Its “ready-made” column width presents an
opportunity to problem-solve: Whatever layout might be desirable in the large
format screen will do best by working here, first.
Working from small screen to large, developing a grid is a matter of arranging
columns of the smartphone width side-by-side to fill the increasing screen area.
The base column can be subdivided for greater flexibility and layout variation.
———
This diagram demonstrates the part-to-whole relationship that can be achieved
between smallest and largest screen formats by using the smartphone screen
proportion as a base column. Even if that column is subsequently subdivided, the
grid will maintain a consistent proportion among all formats and enforce visual
continuity throughout.
Material sized to, and situated within, the rightward columns in a large-screen format will
reorient as a single-column, vertical scroll position when the browser closes down to smartphone
format.
———
This represents a dramatic shift in compositional emphasis, from emphatically horizontal—in
which the verticality of the columns adds contrast—to overtly vertical, in which row divisions
assume an increased level of importance.
———
A layout change this pronounced has the potential to disunify a branded experience, so it’s
important that strong horizontal breaks and alignments of a similar quality as will appear in the
small format are built into the large format presentation to ensure continuity.

The conventional browsing functionality for Web-based media is that of scrolling. That means
that information at the top of the screen will disappear when the user scrolls down the page; it
may also mean that important content may not be accessed until the user reaches the page’s
lower end.
———
Pinning elements, so that they remain in place while the page scrolls, is a useful way to ensure
that critical content—especially brand messages and navigation—are continually present. The
designer must take into account the pinned item’s location and size, and its potential to obscure
(or be obscured by) content that scrolls through it.
Structure as Meaning and Metaphor

Structure itself can be a message—designers will want to consider how various

layout conventions may be interpreted on cultural, historical, and associational
levels by their audiences (alongside the practical methods previously discussed)
as yet another means of constructing a grid. Sometimes, a grid of particular
proportions or shaping refers to some other experience in a nearly pictorial way;
at others, its influence may be more subtle, imparting a certain compositional
emphasis that may be appreciated subconsciously, rather than intellectually.
The modular grid in this New Year’s poster reveals the cyclical nature of repeating days—coded by
color that also evokes a celebration of confetti.
Niklaus Troxler Design/Switzerland
Symmetry preceded asymmetry as an organizing principle, developed in the context of a religious
institution; thus, symmetrical layouts are usually interpreted as classical or authoritative, while
asymmetrical layouts impart a modern, or more casual, quality.
This motion design sequence opens a documentary/news program with images and text that
rapidly slides—frame by frame—through a modular grid that alludes to the editing bay used for
post-production in video and film work. In doing so, it promotes an interpretation of authenticity
in reportage by revealing the process of its creation and suggsting that the news is so up-to-the-
minute that the stories are still being edited.
Gretel/USA
The grid for this magazine, which celebrates the human condition in all its aspects, builds a
proportional row structure from a low horizon guide. Despite pronounced verticality in some
layouts, the reader’s eye is continually pulled “groundward” to that horizon—the earth upon
which the reader exists.
Thomas Ockerse/USA
A book about the Industrial Revolution uses a modular grid pushed low by a deep head margin.
The result is that text columns and images take on a pictorial quality, suggesting rising buildings
in a cityscape.
Designer unknown; TImothy Samara/USA, Instructor
The quadrant structure of this cover system plays off the publication’s title, and also notes a
fundamental truth: the seasons divide the year into quarters. As each issue’s season marker
travels from one sector to another in clockwise rotation, the quality of time being marked,
clocklike, imparts a reassuring continuity.
Level Design Group/USA
Using a Grid
Considerations and Best Practices

Building a project’s grid addresses the functional aspects of its content and
general organization—but it’s a starting point. The real work begins with
establishing how the material will be articulated within the grid: What kinds
of scale relationships will exist among elements? What rhythm might
compositions express? How geometric or ordered is the material’s
appearance, or how organic? Even with the simplest grid, the possibiltiies of
approach are myriad.
This series of layouts alludes to the spectrum of compositional possibility that is possible on just
one relatively simple structure—shown here ordered from the fullest and most static to the most
open and dynamic.
———
Material justified to the margins, or to specific module depths, creates a rigid geometry. Hanging
material provides a measure of consistency, balanced by their changing depth. Material that
changes hangline and depth offers the most organic and flexible quality of arrangement.
Layouts in this magazine strictly follow its grid’s modular structure, adhering to both column and
row alignments with surgical precision. Boldly rotating text elements and dramatically scaling
them, as well as carving out dramatic intersections between columns and rows with negative
space, alleviates the potential stiffness of the grid’s explicit presence.
Atlas/Spain
Like the magazine above, this book about Scandinavian textiles uses a very precise modular grid,
but its compositional quality is completely different: Elements shift from module to module, even
sharing columns between them—and so assume a woven character.
Yoojung Kang/USA
Compositional Logic

Degrees of Articulation

One of a designer’s first considerations is how “full” the compositional space

ought to appear—that is, to what degree the body is filled by content to its
margins. A little mystery—leaving columns or modules open, not revealing the
structure at every juncture—goes a long way toward achieving a dynamic
experience. Sometimes this aspect comes down not to a purposeful decision, but
rather to the relation of content volume to page count; even so, a designer must
be able to maintain some negative space to provide areas of visual rest.
Each of these three projects fills its grid structure to greater or lesser degrees. The newspaper at
left is full to the margins; the page becomes more of a texture, interrupted by the dark image
masses. In the brochure below, the space is relatively full, but a number of modules in the grid are
left open to encourage movement through the puzzle-like architecture. The publication at bottom
pushes content to the exterior of the body, creating an undefined, open space for the majority of
the page spread.
Pentagram/UK [left] Paone Design Associates/USA [middle] Willi Kunz Studio/USA [bottom]
Margin Measures and Body Position

Almost independent of what kind of grid is being used, an essential decision to

be made is how the body (and articulation of content) will relate to the format:
Will it be positioned symmetrically (mirroring) or asymmetrically (offsetting) on
each page, relative to the page opposite? Will the content be oriented toward a
spread’s interior, or pushed outward toward the foredges? Each decision will
result in a remarkably different feel for the layouts.
___ The primary positioning of content can be effected with the margins alone,
using different measures for each margin to orient the body in different locations
relative to the page format; or, added “false” margin may be built into the
structure itself, meaning that a column that is part of the grid may be left open to
act as a margin space. This option leaves the designer some flexibility for using
that space should the need arise.

The two projects above, left, situate the body symmetrically in the spread. The top one does this
with actual margins; the one below uses outer columns to create added margins.
Timothy Samara/USA [top] Ideas On Purpose/USA [bottom]
The two projects directly above offset the body to the left on each page, creating asymmetrical
structure.
Kari Porter/USA [top] Robert McConnell/USA [bottom]
Compositional Logic

Modularity, Shaping, and Directional Emphasis

Compositional elements, whether headlines, paragraphs of text, or images, create

shapes and establish movement and rhythm through a space. How they do so,
interacting with the grid that is guiding their relative scales and positions, must
be defined as a specific characteristic based on the functional needs of the
information but, perhaps more importantly, in relation to the subject matter to be
communicated. By establishing a particular compositional idea and carrying it
out across all the project’s parts, even on a merely formal level, a designer also
works toward building a cohesive totality.
Text and image components in these magazine spreads piece together around the modules,
imparting a thoughtful, constructive quality that supports its subject matter: artisinal
craftsmanship.
Yoojung Kang/USA
The annual report spreads above and below enforce a geometric rigidity by constraining content
to only a portion of the module structure. The resulting austerity is quite analytical, supporting
the client’s credibility as a provider of cybersecurity services. The modular geometry integrates
with images as overlayed blank boxes.
Cahan & Associates/USA
The image and the typography establish a set of opposing, overlapping angles—like L-brackets
crossing their corners—and this logic was applied to all the page spreads in this recipe book. That
decision was mostly a formal one: a way of visually connecting the two kinds of material while
creating contrast needed to counter the repetition of mostly horizontal-format images
throughout.
Timothy Samara/USA

A strong hangline at the top of this brochure layout—which carves out a consistent area for visual
rest—creates a focused, regular horizontality in contrast to the pronounced vertical rhythm of
text and images.
C. Harvey Graphic Design/USA
These page spreads from a publisher’s catalogue use the same grid in different ways—creating a
marked visual difference between sections that serve different purposes. The spread at top
promotes new releases; the spread at bottom is a more conventional catalogue listing. Both,
despite their overall differences, share a strong, up/down vertical rhythm.
Frost*collective/Australia
Compositional Logic

Qualities of Depth and Surface Activity

The degree to which a grid is articulated will have an impact on the perception
of space—whether it seems flat, with material appearing to slide across the
surface; or whether it seems deep, as though the material within the space exists
on dimensional layers in a foreground, middle ground, and background. In
general, the fuller the page, and the more alignments within the grid that are
explicitly marked by compositional elements, the flatter the appearance of the
page; this quality is also exaggerated by the presence of elements that are similar
in scale, as well as by large amounts of text which, being linear and textural, will
more likley be felt as surface activity, rather than as dimensional planes or
objects of mass. Conversely, the more columns, rows, or modules left open, the
deeper the space will seem—pictorial elements and text will take on the quality
of independent, floating objects. Greater variety in the shapes and proportions of
negative spaces, too, will add to a perception of deeper space (as well as greater
movement), as will strong contrasts in the relative sizes of elements.
A quality of geometric precision pervades this webpage design, with content filling the columns to
the margins. While the planar masses of the images contribute some sense of depth to the space,
the gutters between columns and rows are very pronounced; optically, one becomes somewhat
conscious of the white, linear armature they create.
Studio Blue/USA
The two layouts above employ modular grids. The one directly below appears flatter because
modules are articulated as geometric planes that directly abut each other. The layout lower on
the page, however, creates the appearance of objects floating in a deep, dimensional space by
virtue of their separation, contrasts in size, and open modules.
Frankfurt Balkind Partners/USA [top]
Sheila deBretteville/USA [bottom]
The typography in each page spread from this cookbook occupies a different apparent spatial
location as a result of several aspects: The type in the dark spread at top appears to recede into
deep space because the grid is articulated only by three elements—and the other two are both
massive, advancing into the foreground. The type in the spread with the white background
appears mostly as a surface element because its contrast against the white field is quite stark; in
addition, the type marks a greater number of alignments; and, there are moments where type
seems directly anchored to the format edges—by the optical weight of the large numerals, and by
the page fullness and close-margin relationship of the text column on the right-hand page.
Kari Porter/USA
The designers of this publication create a compelling tension between apparently deep space and
flat surface activity through the use of transparency—illusory as well as physically, through the
use of vellum sheets. The justified text, articulated very geometrically, appears to travel just
under the surface, in contrast to images that appear as windows or floating objects. Crossing
imagery with text creates an ambiguous depth.
Level Design Group/USA
Design as a System

Variation and Violation

A grid is successfully implemented only if a designer rises above the uniformity

implied by its structure and uses it to create a dynamic visual experience that
sustains interest page after page, screen after screen. The greatst danger in using
a grid is to succumb to its regularity. It’s important to remember two notions in
this regard: First, that a system exists to encourage flexibility—its rules are made
to allow a range of expression; and second, that the grid is a guide—to be
followed as much as possible, but deviated from if there’s a good reason to do
so. Grids don’t make dull layouts—designers do.

A system’s expression lies on a continuum between rigid and organic. The designers of this book
cover system built extensive variation into its governing rules, formalizing an organic family of
layout options that could be implemented to anticipate different requirements.
Meta Design AG/Germany
These two book spreads demonstrate effective variation of an exceptionally simple modular grid.
The designer’s use of alternating spatial zones from page to page accomplishes three goals: the
change from horizontal to vertical emphasis enhances visual interest; it serves to reinforce the
grid by making its presence known in multiple ways; and it creates a rhythmic sense of unity
between the pages.
Vignelli Associates/USA
A simple trick to achieving layout variation is to alternately cluster images toward the top or
bottom from spread to spread; another is to force a small, medium, and large image onto a spread
—and then use the same sizes, but placed in different locations, on the next spread. These basic
strategies create what could be termed “bounce” from spread to spread.

Articulating material across several column structures within the same project—but using similar
positioning logic throughout—creates a tremendous difference in the overall rhythm of the
layouts while retaining a certain unity.
These two spreads make use of both strategies described above.
Level Design Group/USA
Design as a System

The large format of a poster provides an opportunity to explore variation in its structure in
different areas, as happens in this one: It uses an 8-column modular grid, expressed in two ways—
as a conventional hanglined column structure at the bottom, and in the form of a concentric
frameset above. Furthermore, the grid is also violated by a secondary structure—a system of
diagonal channels that are based on the row measure—and more so by irregular illustrative
forms.
Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv [Steff Geissbühler]/USA

Occasionally ignoring a rigorous grid has a dramatic effect on pacing and hierarchy. In this study,
just such an instance stands out among a series of layouts that are heavily structured. The
resulting surprise breathes life into the sequence and highlights featured content.
resulting surprise breathes life into the sequence and highlights featured content.

The layout of this publication—based on a simple, large-measure, 2-column grid—benefits visually

from being constantly violated by image and text elements that cross gutters, push outside the
true margins, and intrude into the text fields. The structure was purposely designed to integrate
this kind of transgressive behavior.
Level Design Group/USA
The grid used for this cookbook has been violated in two ways. In the spread at top, the gold-hued
callout, set in an italic, Neoclassical serif, ignores alignment and width proportions entirely.
Otherwise, the material is shaped and ordered very geometrically. On the spread below that, the
chapter-opening content is arranged symmetrically—in contrast to the hard edges and
asymmetric arrangement elsewhere.
Kiyoko Shiromasa/USA
Design as a System

Sequence and Pace

Building off the idea of variation, the rhythmic pacing of visual presentation
from part to part in a system within a sequence-based format can be a powerful
means of keeping the implementation of a grid lively. Pacing can be understood
as a kind of cadence or “timing” a viewer will apprehend from one part to
another, as well as the degree of dynamism or activity they perceive.
___ By varying this rhythm from slow to fast, or from quiet to dynamic, the
designer can accomplish several goals. One of these is strictly visual: Each new
screen or page spread engages the reader in a new way. Another result might be
that the reader is cued to a significant content change, thereby clarifying
informational function. To some degree, the pacing of material relates directly to
its ordering, or distribution. The ordering process accounts for location and
actual sequence of raw content, whereas pacing is concerned with the formal
variation that has been imposed upon it—ordering is about function; pacing is
about feeling.
___ Indeed, such organization may be an intrinsic part of the concept that
governs the visual presentation of the content. The designer may get some sense
of a project’s potential pacing while ordering its content, but it ultimately
depends on the message he or she is trying to convey with the system’s rules.
Throughout a sequence of page spreads in a publication, for example,
application of the system’s rules for the sizes, weights, and styles of various text
elements will automatically create a recognizable rhythm that will likely support
the informational hierarchy. However, this intrinsic pacing may seem too even,
or quietly paced, in the context of his or her concept; or, the designer may decide
that this quietness is appropriate, but notices that some content elements could
benefit from a pacing change that employs another of the system’s formal rules
to help emphasize or feature them. It could be argued that a project’s pacing
should derive naturally from its content’s hierarchy, but it is up to the designer to
balance this need with that of invigorating the viewer.
Although pacing is somewhat intuitive, being methodical may initially allow the designer to see
how a pacing strategy will unfold over a given sequence of material. By conceiving, in simplest
terms, of visual states to be achieved, and creating for each an abstract or iconic sketch, a
designer may quickly rough out a storyboard for a pacing strategy.
In the context of a scrolling webpage—where a grid’s compositional field is contiguous—the
notion of pacing focuses on lateral positioning of elements, in concert with changes in the depths
and widths of masses.
The pacing logic that governs this sequence of page spreads is actually simple, despite how
complicated it might appear at a glance. The first spread is representative of chapter openers—
the only instance in which a spread is divided in half by a full-page image bleed. From there,
images alternate in high/low and left/right position, whether there’s one image or two. If an
image appears at a large size on one spread, it’s followed by a smaller image on the next, then a
large one, and so on. Text material responds to these simple alternations in suit.
Timothy Samara/USA
Design as a System

Integrating Formats and Media

Grids can be especially effective for unifying complex, comprehensive

campaigns or identity programs—where messaging, functionality, complexity,
and medium are likely to be quite varied. It is in these situations where the
tension between a grid’s consistent architecture and its ability to flex for
different purposes comes to the fore. If the designer has the opportunity to
anticipate all (or most) of the materials intended for production, the formats of
various communications can all be outgrowths of a column or module proportion
—or vice versa. By regulating formats across touchpoints and media, the
designer may achieve several goals: Most important, arguably, is greater visual
cohesion. Interrelating formats means they can be used harmoniously together;
further, formats produced by similar processes are more likely to be able to be
produced simultaneously and, therefore, more inexpensively.
All images in this section "Integrating Formats and Media": Studio di Progettazione Grafica [Sabina
Oberholtzer, AGI and Renato Tagli]/Switzerland
A vast array of touchpoints, or applications, within the brand system for an art museum gives
credence to the notions that grids are built to encompass variation, and that they can be used to
cohesively orchestrate the visual language of a complex program across multiple media—without
becoming monotonously repetitive.
———
The museum’s logo itself is the source of the grid, based on three squares defined by its initial
letters. The base three-square grid can be added to, one module at a time, to create strips of
extended proportion that include the museum’s full name (in several languages), and that can act
as heading elements on stationery or the webpage, as elongated banners, and as freestanding
signage kiosks.
———
On the museum’s website, the grid forms the basis of a 4-column structure, while navigation
exists outside of it, distinguishing it from content.
———
A secondary structural relationship, in the form of an alignment dropped from the initial L’s left-
most edge, appears in both the website and the stationery.
ISO “world-size” posters are organized on a substructure, also defined by the initial L and the
square. The ISO format system derives from the proportions of the Golden Section; the square is
an intrinsic component of its mathematical relationships. Visual information in the posters is
situated to reveal that square, while the measure of the L’s vertical stroke proportions text,
running vertically—which captures the “strip” quality of the logo.
Exhibits
Each exhibit is supported with a label and diagram that describe its structure,
followed by credits, a general overview, and a list of related exhibits for
comparison—from left to right, across the top of the page.
———
The exhibit comparisons from both sections are numbered and color coded
for easy reference.

01
Modular Grid

Japanese designer Igarashi’s signature three-dimensional letterform sculptures

fill a modular grid in this exhibition poster. The grid is used to provide distinct
components of information—venue, date and time, event sponsor—and as a
convenient way to group dozens of photographs of the letter sculptures.
Thoughtful placement of individual images sets up optical rhythms within the
rows and columns of square snapshots, almost like the storyboard of a film
sequence. Because the information is sparse and discontinuous, the gutter
measures between modules can be small; their linearity adds contrast to the
overall continuously planar formal quality of the visual field.
___ The translucent white modules separate from the background to draw
attention to specific information. Although they appear at first to be
asymmetrically arranged, these modules are ordered in relation to the vertical
central axis to express rotational symmetry; as a result, they create a set of
interacting diagonal axes that reverse from top to bottom and left to right,
exaggerating the kinetic, filmstrip-like movement in the poster.
DESIGN

Poulin+Morris
New York, NY | USA
Poster for an exhibition sponsored by the American Institute of Graphic Arts
02
Column Grid / Hierarchic Modular Rows
This website’s content is broken into four major categories, each of which is
comprehensive in scope and itself parceled out into secondary and tertiary levels
of increasing depth or focus. The designers used a 15-column grid to provide
ample control over a wide variety of content types. The shallow band of global
navigation across the header does not conform to the column structure.
___ The limited selection of pages presented here shows several of the many
possibilities for defining column widths that the grid provides. On the landing
page (top), three columns of decreasing width progress across the page; the
second example shows a modular, two-within-one configuration, doubled left to
right; at bottom, a configuration of column widths that is strictly hierarchic, with
the widths of text and image columns determined by their relative proportions
for that kind of content.
___ Although only columns are actually defined in the grid, the appearance of
module-like elements (most often inset images) and, sometimes, module-based
rows of information, occurs with some frequency. The “module” is really just a
depth proportion based on a combination of column widths used for a particular
element, and appears to generate a row structure when those kinds of squared
content units align horizontally.
___ Each of these kinds of configurations forms a template for pages of similar
content within its respective section.
DESIGN

Studio Blue
Chicago, IL | USA
Website for a Jewish culture educational and research organization
03
Modular Grid / “Graph Paper” Variant
A comfortably proportioned modular grid provides overall branding continuity
and endless layout variations for Springer, a publisher of textbooks. The
program uses a grid of modules that, unlike other grids of this kind, butt each
other like a chessboard. The lack of gutters or margins means that the actual
book formats can be configured on the grid for greater consistency, and the
gridded image areas always align with each other and with the book’s spine and
edges.
___ The schematic shows the publisher’s in-house designers a number of options
for using the grid to vary the placement of images, type areas, and areas of flat
color. Sequences of books in a single subject can be grouped with a single
layout, but be given their own identities through color and image variation. Bold
scientific materials, as well as more reserved layouts for literature and critical
essays, are equally possible.
DESIGN

MetaDesign AG
Berlin | Germany
Book cover layout system for Springer Verlag publishers
04
Column Grid
A very basic two-column grid organizes this guidelines manual. As a document
that must serve a number of decentralized GSA (General Services
Administration) and public-buildings development offices, its simplicity
promotes continuity in approach and helps users access information easily. The
columns roughly divide the pages in half. The margins are optically even; the
interior margins are a bit wider to compensate for the ring binding. While linear
elements demarcate the margins throughout, the full grid is made evident in the
section contents pages as a reference to architectural blueprints.
___ Running section folios span the two columns, but at the foot of the page
rather than at the top, giving precedence to the more important elements of the
hierarchy: section headlines, subheads, and bulleted information.
___ Charts and tables are easily integrated into the grid and provide some
variation within the straightforward page layouts. Tab dividers use the grid’s
margin frame as a decorative element, contrasting the large-scale section
numerals and titles.
DESIGN

Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv

New York, NY | USA
U.S. General Services Administration guidelines for public architecture
05
Column Grid
This quarterly publication promoting a publisher’s catalog of offerings is
designed using an unusual grid of 1-centimeter vertical divisions with two
distinct flowlines, both at the top of the page. Each page in a spread is devoted to
the display of a single book.
___ The vertical center line of the page provides a consistent orientation point
for the book’s publication information, which flushes left from that line and
hangs from the topmost flowline. A narrow horizontal band is defined by the
space between the book’s information and the beginning of the descriptive text.
That text hangs from the second flowline, which also establishes the location of
the page marker to the far right. Within the narrow horizontal band, the book’s
title—in a larger and bolder weight of the same sans serif face used for running
text—is stacked upward from the lower flowline, line by line as needed.
___ The multiple vertical divisions, meanwhile, allow the designer to introduce
rhythm and movement to the text by shifting the paragraph alignment back and
forth. Sometimes this shift accommodates the format of the book cover that is
shown, and other times it is an optical response to the dynamics of the other
elements in the spread. The left flush of the paragraph always returns to an
alignment with the information hanging at the top to give resolution to the page.
DESIGN

Frost*collective
Sydney | Australia
Book catalogue system for Laurence King Publishing
06
Modular Grid / Alternating Binary Increments
This poster makes use of an interesting grid that is based on the stroke/counter
structure of its title’s letterforms. In essence, there exists a binary structure of
two modules, each of different width, that alternate sequentially from left to
right, but show alignments vertically from row to row.
___ One module’s measure is represented by the width of the narrow stem in the
letter H; another is represented by the wide stem of the letter E, or by the
apparent “blocks” that appear to obscure letters such as the D and B in the third
row from the top. The counterspaces—the negative area separating letters—are
actually the row gutters.
___ The designers adhere to this binary grid pretty rigorously, but there are
instances where they’ve cheated the grid, combining a gutter with one of the
narrower or wider modules in order to maintain a desired alignment between
forms on different rows, or a particular rhythmic logic to the widths of elements
as they proceed across a row.
___ A small paragraph of text, together with the University’s logotype, appear in
red for contrast and visual interest.
DESIGN

Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation

Stuttgart | Germany
Exhibition poster for the Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences
07
Modular Grid with Deviations
This exhibition poster uses an exceptionally large module—relative to the
proportion of the format—as the basis for its composition.
___ The letters forming the exhibition’s title are laid out in a 4 x 5 grid of
vertically proportioned modules that bleed to the edges of the poster’s format—
there are no margins. The alternating black and white fields create backgrounds
for the individual letters.
___ Similar to conditions in the poster shown on the opposite page, the designer
“cheats” his grid a little to ensure the legibility of the letters (as well as to
improve the decisiveness of the shapes created along their adjacencies), shifting
them upward or sideways to help reveal their forms, but the grid remains clearly
present as an ordering structure.
___ Overlaps and vibrating juxtapositions of black and white areas introduce
detail variation on top of the regular understructure. The dramatic scale of the
title gives way to a more focused column of time and date description in the far
right column.
DESIGN

Niklaus Troxler Design

Willisau | Switzerland
Poster for an exhibition of posters at the Willisau Rathaus
08
Modular Grid
KVGO annually publishes a book to promote its members’ activities and
highlight the skills of graphic artists in general. This particular edition was about
the technique of Dutch book illustration in the nineteen century. For optimal
presentation of the various techniques, UNA used foldouts, inserts, and die cuts,
as well as a wide range of paper stock. The text and images are placed on an
intricate, six-column modular grid with ten modules vertically. Each module is
divided in half vertically, and all text baselines, from the top of the page, are
available as hanglines should the need arise.
___ This grid is designed to accommodate numerous, unusual nonstandard
illustration formats, which are presented wherever they fit, so long as they align
with the grid; they’re permitted to float behind or interfere with the regular
double-column of running text, and often straddle the gutter.
___ The home starting point for captions is a secondary outer margin that is
mirrored from left to right pages. The smaller type size and column width for the
captions correspond to the single-width column defined by the module.
___ Inserts of varying sizes and paper stocks are tipped in and do not necessarily
adhere to the grid. This unexpected violation is sometimes applied to the
illustrations that are actually printed on the main text page. The interaction
between these trompe-l’oeil images and the three-dimensional pop-ups creates a
rich dimensionality.
DESIGN

Una [Amsterdam] Designers

Amsterdam | Netherlands
Promotional book for the Dutch Royal Foundation of Graphic Enterprises [KVGO]
09
Column Grid / Module+Format Dependent
In this rigorously disciplined stationery system for a multinational apparel
manufacturer, a column grid whose column-count and proportions are defined
by a consistent module helps coordinate internal company communication
documents across three continents. The module that orders the document
structures is the company’s logo itself, a red square. The logo/module’s size
remains the same in every instance, but the column structure it precipitates in
each document’s format is determined by how many modules of that size can be
configured side-by-side within it, given its particular height and width. By
setting up specific, related column structures in all of the printed materials, the
modular grid helps order multiple addresses and complex forms for a coherent,
recognizable brand image.
DESIGN

Paone Design Associates

Philadelphia, PA | USA
Identity and stationery system for DZ Group, an apparel manufacturer
10
Modular Grid / “Graph Paper” Variant
This simply constructed traveling exhibition about a Nobel Prize winner’s life
balances the studied rigor of a square-module grid with gracefully curved panels
and details of bright color. The grid is an enlarged modular grid, without
interstices between the modules. Text and images relating the story of Arthur
Kornberg’s life are arranged around the grid: interlocking, changing horizontal
and vertical stress, moving over and under individual modules but always
adhering to it.
___ The modular grid, specifically, allows numerous shaped images to integrate
seamlessly without having to resort to translucency or montage effects that
might not reproduce well at exhibition-sized scale. Some elements are two
modules high by three wide, whereas some are two modules square.
___ Clever shifts in alignment and insets of flat color and type against textural
backgrounds create a smooth, unbroken continuum of image and words from the
beginning panel to the last.
DESIGN

Poulin+Morris
New York, NY | USA
Traveling exhibition for University of Rochester Medical Center
11
Compound Grid / Modular+Hierarchic
The modular grid that governs most of this architecture firm’s website is
expressed in 3D as rows of project images. Once the projects load into their
modules sequentially (left), the user can see cursory information about each by
hovering over it. Moving the cursor toward the top of the screen (or, toward the
back rows of the arrangement) causes the rows to advance toward the user in
space. Clicking on any project image within a row will “fly” the user down into
the matrix of pictures and position them at “ground level” in front of it.
At this point, the user may choose to scroll information about the selected
project within the inset image window—which is built on a hierarchic grid—or
click on any of the images from rows that are further away in space; the interafce
will then zoom the user through the rows at warp speed to confront the newly
selected project image.
Users may toggle between the picture-grid view and a typographic index,
articulated on the same modular grid; the indexical entries are situated in the
same modules as are their pictorial counterparts.
___ The user may zoom out, reducing the scale of the grid so that they may
peruse projects chronologically, and then zoom in to see specific project listings
related to a particular year of interest. Clicking on the navigation toggle at lower
right reorients the user in the pictorial grid, at the same relative location within
the grid as the text entry.
DESIGN

Lisa Strausfeld [produced while at Pentagram/NY]

Portland, OR | USA
Website for architecture firm Diller Scofidio+Renfrew
12
Column Grid
A nine-column grid supplied the variety needed to encompass an enormous
selection of artifacts, descriptions, and listings for this hardcover book on the
museums and libraries of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.
___ For essays and their supporting images in the book’s first section, the nine
columns are used as three. Running text hangs from a single flowline near the
top of the page, starting and ending with a complete paragraph. Each spread is
informationally independent: only images referred to in the text on that spread
are shown. The tremendous flexibility inherent in the column grid allows the
designers to vary the layouts to accommodate unusually shaped artifacts, but the
hangline and natural ending depths of the text give a unified quality to the
information. Captions occupy a narrow width defined by that of two base
columns and can be placed in close proximity to the image they notate; the
precision of the nine-column grid ensures they always align with it, regardless of
where they must be placed.
___ In the listing of institutions that makes up the book’s second major section,
this text structure is even more useful; each institution’s listing, no matter how
involved, is available at a glance. Captions in this section remain the same as
before, but the text width is narrowed to occupy the width of three base columns.
Each width is suited to the respective type size and function of the information.
DESIGN

Katz Wheeler
Philadelphia, PA | USA
Cultural Connections, a history book published by Temple University Press
13
Row-Structured Hierarchic Grid
The image material provided for consideration in designing this trade
magazine’s covers was of low quality; for budgetary reasons no new
photography would be possible. As a solution, and to create distinction, the
designer implemented a compositional system based on a colored band that
holds the masthead, which is able to slide up and down on the cover in response
to whatever image is available.
___ The A4 format is divided first by a square of its width, based on the
proportioning of the golden section in classical architecture. The masthead band
is equal in height to one-third of that square. Within the band, the information—
magazine name, volume number, and contents—is distributed vertically along
flowlines that divide the band into quarters and is broken by a vertical division
that also corresponds to the golden section. The width of one-quarter of the band
establishes the outer margins for typography.
___ As the band is positioned during the design process, it reveals and obscures
different aspects of the background photograph. It also divides the entire page in
harmonious proportions relating to the golden section. The aggressively rigorous
geometry of the layout system helps to mask the poor quality of the images and
helps create consistency between editions.
DESIGN

Atelier Poisson
Lausanne | Switzerland
Cover system for an interior design and architecture trade magazine
14
Column Grid
Upon landing, what initially appears to this site’s visitors as an unconstructed
collage of colored image fields resolves itself into a distinct 4-column grid as the
page is scrolled from top to bottom. Once the structure comes to rest in its grid-
formatted presentation, the designers retain a sense of the collage’s liberty by
gently rotating some elements within their respective columns.
___ No row structure is evident, nor are left-to-right horizontal alignments, as
the depths of the individual text/image units vary, driven by the sizes of the
images and the scope of the text that each contains.
Upon selecting an image/text unit—all of which are active links—users are
taken to a page that provides information of greater depth and detail. In these
pages, text spans the interior two columns, while images are aligned horizontally
across all four, creating instances of row structure whenever the content dictates
its use.
DESIGN

Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation

Stuttgart | Germany
Website for the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar
15
Modular Grid
For this trade exhibit of furniture produced by a venerable Italian manufacturer,
the designer brings the organizational grid into physical existence. The subtle
irony here is that while interior designers use a flat grid to plan a three-
dimensional space, the grid is made three-dimensional, and the furniture’s “real”
presence in this exhibit is represented by a single, iconic chair, set apart from the
remaining space on a glass platform exactly three grid-modules square.
___ The rest of the furniture is displayed as flat photography organized in a
three-dimensional plan. As a result, a great deal more furniture can be shown,
and the exhibit has a much greater presence because of its unusual approach.
Articulating the grid through the use of materials adds a tactile quality and a
solidity that imparts a serene order to the space. The modules in the floor are
stone blocks; the vertical displays, showcasing the photographs of furniture, are
brushed steel planks that have been inserted between the floor blocks. A glass
plane under the iconic chair and the floor blocks creates reflection, highlighting
the chair’s physicality and linking it to the remainder of the grid.
___ Translucent scrims stretch from the floor in front of walls that have been
airbrushed from lighter to darker, and then lit from below, giving the impression
that the walls and vertical plinths are floating; despite its apparent rigidity, the
grid assumes a light, ethereal quality.
DESIGN

Vignelli Associates
New York, NY | USA
Exhibition and showroom for furniture manufacturer Poltrona Frau
16
Row Grid with Modular and Hierarchic Application
The visual identity established for this documentary and news channel strips the
visual language down to a black-and-white typographic field, using one bold-
weight sans serif font, set either all in caps (for titling) or sentence case (for
continuous text). The grid is composed only of rows that are defined by the
heights of the type, as determined by its hierarchic style—three sizes are
permitted.
___ Within the rows, however, the text performs a number of manoeuvers,
playing with repetition, default spacing intervals, alignment logic, and
organization from left to right. In print, as for the poster snipe shown below,
multiple iterations of the grid become evident. But the system takes on new life
when applied to interstitial video segments that advertise the programming
schedule and appear between programs themselves. Letters and words are
permitted to jump from row to row, to scroll upward or downward at different
rates, or to subdivide the screen into columns for detailed information.
___ The system’s heavy-handed grid application imparts a wry, but
unpretentious quality to the brand that the designers describe as “premium
default.”
DESIGN

Gretel
New York, NY | USA
Brand identity and motion/video applications for a cable television channel
17
Modular Grid
A 6 x 12 modular grid—six columns, twelve rows—elegantly orchestrates crisp
images and typographic layouts for this magazine that fetishizes a single tool in
each issue.
___ The transition from exterior cover, through front matter, to the opening of
the first article focuses on the articulation of a central frame—defined by the
grid’s central four columns and eight rows—to highlight the precious character
of the tool by creating a kind of shadow-box in which to present it. The box
changes in color and solidity from spread to spread, eventually changing from
planar to linear, and easing the reader into a more fluid layout of extensive text
and images that dance, slowly and in a stately, geometric manner, around the
modules. Feature articles that follow the first begin with the linear frame (as seen
in the spread at lower left); this progression is enforced issue after issue.
___ Secondary sections assume an equally crafted presence, but one that is more
conventionally editorial in feeling. Content is constrained to a spatial zone
beginning five rows from the top, with upper-level hierarchic text (like section
titles and decks), as well as introductory images, arranged above.
___ Folios and a system of detailed runners exist in the head margin and in the
foredge margins providing a highly crafted, precise sense of navigation and
attention to the magazine as an object in its own right.
___ A limited ink palette highlights the rich coloration of very specifically art-
directed photographs and illustrative elements, using a light, warm gray as a
backdrop and one relatively intense pastel for each issue. The paper stock, it
turns out, is actually gray; white elements are printed in an opaque ink to call
attention to the surface and, again, to the magazine as an object.
DESIGN

Yoojung Kang Timothy Samara, Instructor

New York, NY | USA
Editorial structure for a publication devoted to tools and crafts
18
Column Grid
This annual report for a private bank in the Netherlands is organized around an
elegant column grid that seamlessly integrates running text, tables, and financial
disclosures. The text block is divided into four primary columns of 40 mm each,
and those again in half—the width of the longest numeric figure in any table. A
set of alignments separated by 10 mm at the leading edge of the main text block
provides a consistent edge for text and financials, and subheads or notations
outdent slightly to align with the page number up top. The hangline for body text
creates a space between the running title head that orients the tabular matter.
Columns of numbers are differentiated by white space or background tints, with
current figures given the most prominence.
___ The hard cover is embossed with the bank’s crest in a nod to its reserved
interior, but is wrapped by a colorful, folded poster that displays the most
relevant financial figures from the interior. It’s an attractive departure from the
stately interior, but the short-folded edge that reveals the bank’s logotype echoes
the text’s hangline inside.
DESIGN

Una [Amsterdam] Designers

Amsterdam | Netherlands
Annual report for the Dutch bank Van Lanschot
19
Hierarchic Grid
A grid-based set of proportions, mathematically derived from the width of these
small-format Biblical extracts, provides a clean, simple structure for their titling.
The depth of the first hangline, for the title itself, is the square of the book’s
width. The secondary information is given specific position, respective of its
place in the hierarchy (subtitle, Biblical notation, author, translator). The use of a
structural underline and linear-rule bracket for separation of elements in this area
lends contrast to the mysterious photography, as well as a more modern
sensibility.
DESIGN

Pentagram UK—Angus Hyland

London, England | UK
Cover layout system for Canongate Books, Ltd.
20
Column Grid with Hierarchic Zones
Ten columns structure the body of each page, which is separated from its partner
in a spread by an exceptionally narrow gutter. The interior columns are generally
free of material, used as added margin.
___ Four flowlines cut across the spread at different intervals from the page head
to establish locations for content presented in a consistent configuration: a row
of images, a row of course listings, a shallow row of secondary images, and the
primary text, arranged across a variety of column widths below all. In some
instances, no secondary images appear, so the designer raises the running text
area to begin at their usual flowline and make use of the space that would
otherwise have been forfeit.
___ Elements generally appear to adhere to the column alignments within their
respective rows, but on close inspection one discovers that images within the top
row zone deviate on a regular basis. The designer is treating material in this row
differently by cropping the images to whatever width seems best for each, and
then adjusting their positions to play off the more regularized alignments above
and below. This special “rule” creates a more organic, lateral rhythmic
movement in that one area that contrasts the systematic repetition of vertical
elements throughout the majority of the page spreads.
DESIGN

Paone Design Associates

Philadelphia, PA | USA
Course catalogue for the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Design
21
Dimensional Modular Grid
The premise of this pioneering digital interface, produced for a media and design
conference, is to add dimension to text information for greater accessibility, as
well as to facilitate the connection of related components using a spatial model.
It was envisioned that the text would behave according to a standard typographic
grid, but in three dimensions, so that multiple axes could work together to
organize the text.
___ Several kinds of information are presented: a selection of news articles
separated by subject; a complex set of financial data; a geographical map of the
United States; and a virtual map of network users joined over the Internet. The
maps are presented in a kind of space that references location and scale, but the
texts are arranged on modular grids that permit the user to fly through the
information intuitively, going from one subject to another, turning to an article in
space to reveal links to related articles.
___ The user is able to sort the information contained in the database around the
axes of the grid, depending on which path of inquiry he or she wants to follow:
each axis shows one set of facts, sorted by specific criteria. The relationships
between multiple fact sets are made visible and more immediately accessible
through the design’s movement; the user can see what information is connected
through the grid lines and around corners.
___ The information’s legibility changes depending on its orientation to the
viewer. As the user navigates the grid, text that is running along another axis can
be rotated into proper reading position; text objects in the distance change color
and become more distinct as they come closer.
DESIGN

MIT Media Lab/Visible Language Workshop—Muriel Cooper [CD] and David Small
Cambridge, MA | USA
Dynamic text interface for TED Conferences LLC
22
Dimensional Column Grid
Relatively ordinary columns of serif type form the basis of this complex digital
information system that combines passages of the Talmud and the Torah,
translated into English and French. By turning dials located on the dispay
monitor that correspond to different, but related, aspects of the texts, viewers are
able to zoom in to specific passages and interactively cross-reference them with
related texts in the database.
___ The dials rotate the text columns in virtual space, with each axis around the
column linking to other texts or to its translation in the other language. The
distribution of the text across the columns changes depending on which dials are
selected and, therefore, which aspect of the text is called into view. The grid in
this information system allows thousands of pages to be interconnected and
accessible within seconds.
DESIGN

Small Design Firm, Inc.

Cambridge, MA | USA
The Talmud Project, an interactive text interface for the MIT Media Lab
23
Column Grid / Half-Browser Module Formations
The 12-column grid used in this site’s design is expressed as modular, in a
square proportion based on the width of a combination of columns: content is
proportioned, for example, by 3-column-wide modules on the landing page
(shown four across) or 2-column-wide modules (shown six across) on the
subpage. The symmetrical subdivision of the twelve base columns permits the
modularity to remain consistent as the browser resizes, because both module
proportions respond to the halving of the format, left-to-right (no matter how
many modules appear, there are always 6 columns on either side of the central
vertical axis). This halving continues into the smartphone format, where full-
screen width and half-width square modules can exist together in the narrow
screen.
___ Detailing in the design is spare and elegant. One column-depth of space
separates headings from text, and acts as a division between screen areas via a
line rule. Navigation is carefully arranged in a header and secondary bands of the
same depth, with links positioned left to right to strike column alignments and
maintain the grid’s continuity even as the browser changes width. Inset images
reveal a text description (and link) upon mouseover, situated in a dark,
translucent band that is one column depth in height.
DESIGN

Piscatello Design Center

New York, NY | USA
Website for architecture firm Kliment Halsband
24
Compound Grid / Modular
The overlap of three modular grids—all using square modules but of vastly
different scale—creates a shifting, ambiguous space as information that aligns to
one grid confronts information that aligns to another. Parts of each grid are
allowed to have common functions or alignment—for instance, the large-scale
grid that contains the primary lecture information also makes use of the small-
scale grid that orders the narrow columns up top; information in the wider
columns of text below incorporate the alignments of the middle-and small-scale
grids to create new widths not available in either grid.
___ Each of the grids is also articulated literally in various locations, their
modules outlined by thin rules, and gutters filled as opaque white structures.
These graphical treatments don’t strictly adhere to one grid or another, moving
freely between them and interacting with typographic elements in different ways
at the designer’s discretion.
DESIGN

Willi Kunz Studio

New York, NY | USA
Lecture poster for Columbia University School of Architecture and Urban Planning
25
Modular Grid / “Graph Paper” Variant
Rich black and white video and sleek typographic gestures slice and slide their
way across the screen in branded motion spots for a financial infotainment
channel. A modular grid, made up of eight primary columns and five primary
rows, guides the action of image strips and planes of type as they move into and
out of the frame. The module is horizontal in proportion, and further subdivided
into 9 smaller units of the same aspect ratio.
___ Video moves through the frame in a number of ways, typically beginning as
independent strips and merging into larger planes; the strips may move into or
out of the frame from top to bottom or left to right, but only in one direction at a
time. The strips may be wide or narrow, depending on what combination of
modules and internal units they use. Divisions between important elements,
especially in a title frame, typically relate to the axes of the larger, primary
modules.
___ Whatever direction video strips are moving, typographic elements—either
independently “floating” text, or text within white planes—act as a foil by cross-
cutting that movement or wiping into the video area, stopping to carve out
angular overlaps of negative space from the image field. Every now and then,
video strips move out from within the frame to reveal text elements.
___ Typographic planes make use of both primary module and submodule axes;
the planes themselves respecting the former, and text respecting both.
For the most part, the typography consists of program title and show time, but as
part of the brand language, video is sometimes intercut with promotional copy
that animates by appearing to key in behind a cursor. Text is chic and strong, set
in a condensed, monospaced sans serif that accentuates the grid’s intervals. A
contrasting sans serif appears for secondary elements.
DESIGN

Gretel
New York, NY | USA
On-air branding system and motion applications for CNBC Prime cable channel
26
Compound Grid / Column + Modular
Multiple grid structures interact in this online annual report. At desktop or tablet
sizing, the content area, which falls below an image that bleeds the screen left
and right, uses a 12-column grid. Global navigation is located in a narrow
header; the dropdown menu that appears on mouseover is structured on four
columns whose widths and alignments are independent of those in the content
area. A third grid structure, independent of both naviagtion and content area,
orders a grouping of video thumbnails. This configuration appears only on the
landing page (opposite page, top) and the proportions derive from those of the
video format.
___ Within the content area, the 12-column grid is articulated as a 3-column
structure that is used in two different ways. For most of the scientific and
business-oriented pages (represented by the “Advances in Oncology” layout,
opposite), the three columns are used in what is called a 2/1 formation: two
columns for a wide text block and one for images, callouts, sidebars, and so on.
For message-oriented pages (such as “Global Reach”), the “2/1” formation is
retained, but instead of a wide column of text and a narrow one of support
material, the two zones combine as a horizontal band, with the 2-column area
presenting an image that relates to a heading in the colored column adjacent.
Each band is part of an accordion structure that expands downward to reveal text
content.
___ When the site collapses to smartphone format, material reorders to scroll
sequentially from top to bottom; callouts or elements in the 2/1 configuration,
for example, all narrow to a single column width and rearrange as embedded
callouts that fall in line with text. Navigation also acts as an accordion, with each
level expanding and contracting on tap or swipe. The global site navigation
pushes the content downward when it expands, instead of covering it.
DESIGN

Ideas On Purpose
New York, NY | USA
Online annual report for a pharmaceutical company
27
Modular Grid
Although this poster’s layout is dominated by image elements of radically
different shapes, a 10 x 12 modular grid helps integrate detailed typography and
bring the images into dialogue with it.
___ The module’s width is visibly defined by the width of the narrow text
columns to the right of the vertical brush image. Its depth is more difficult to
determine. Comparing the depth of the type element at upper left to that of the
carved figures at lower left reveals they’re about the same (this is an important
clue). Repeating that interval between these two locations suggests that there are
six rows, top to bottom. Within the text type, however, there appear smaller
divisions that suggest a greater number of shallower rows. The last clue is in the
dark area of the ornamental wrapping at the top of the brush—its depth divides
the deep row in half (the white area above corresponds to the margin measure).
___ Detailed alignment and proportion relationships between image and type
elements lead to the grid, and then, in reverse, the grid leads to decisions about
alignments and proportions. The size and position of the brush, in particular, is
determined by the depths of the rows; each division within the brush corresponds
to a row increment. The deepest column of text restates the brush’s vertical,
linear gesture, as do the vertical rules and rotated text in the upper left corner.
The carved figures anchor the lower left corner of the format with a repeat of the
column width. Amid all of this orthogonal logic, the arc of the large fan image
and the red, calligraphic device add curvilinear contrast.
DESIGN

Studio di Progetazzione Grafica [Sabrina Oberholtzer, AGI & Renato Tagli]

Cevio | Switzerland
Poster promoting an international creative competition
28
Compound Grid/Modular+Hierarchic
This simply designed website for two graphic designers makes unconventional
use of a modular grid for navigating examples of the designers’ work.
___ Project names are listed in a stacked formation that produces a monospaced
grid. Mousing over the names highlights the vertically stacked name, which—
once the user selects the project to view, by clicking—becomes a titling banner
that hugs the left edge of the project image area on the project page. By mousing
down the stack, a user discovers that individual letters within it are active,
creating “flyouts” of important concepts or relevant aspcts of the project.
___ Clicking on each loads a new image of the project and an accompanying
text. The heading and navigation material at the top of the page, the image
frame, and the text area at lower right are templated in a hierarchic grid.
DESIGN

Meeus Ontwerpt
Amsterdam | Netherlands
Portfolio website for design colleagues Richard Niessen and Esther deVries
29
Column Grid
In this publication, eight columns that are separated by relatively tight gutters
provide a tersely compact quality to the layouts. At a quick glance, the structure
appears modular because of the prevalence of small inset images; in fact, there is
no row structure—comparing the gutters between images that are positioned
above and below each other, in different locations, reveals dissimilarities in their
measures and lack of horizontal alignment. Instead, the designer is considering
groups of related images as units, and positioning them to achieve the vertical
rhythm of proportions and divisions from page to page that will best offset the
text structure’s stable consistency.
___ The text—aside from some variation in the publication’s front matter—
comforms to a strict logic in which the first two of the eight columns contains
headings and notations, and the running text follows in two columns that are
each three columns wide. A system of thin rules breaks the information within
the narrow column; they appear within running text only occasionally.
___ Despite the text’s consistency of presentation, the layouts seem remarkably
varied because different combinations of image proportions are organized across
the structure in different ways on each spread. Sometimes, images overlap each
other in subtle ways, still adhering to the column alignments but introducing a
new kind of dimensionality as a result (see the images on the spread directly to
the left, for example).
___ The cover design (opposite) uses a modular grid that is unrelated to the
internal layout structure, chosen because it is iconically “a grid,” made of square
modules. Printing and varnish techniques render some of the surface matte and
other parts—within the modules—somewhat reflective.
DESIGN

Nakano Design Office

Tokyo | Japan
Documentation book for an architecture conference
30
Column Grid
There’s a staggering variety of content presented in this museum’s website—
from exhibition calendars to lecture descriptions to essays by curators, and
images for every category. The 16-column grid that helps order it mixes modular
and hierarchic gestures to create an easily navigable experience, and one that is
lively with detail and color.
___ In general, the vertical scroll of the pages in the site is split into horizontal
bands, each of a color defined by the branding system—a palette of analogous
hues that span the color wheel from yellow to blue violet. The bands tend to be
subdivided left to right—sometimes into blocks of color and photograph,
directly butting each other; and sometimes into groupings of module-like
photographs, text chunks, and line details.
___ One of the horizontal bands on the landing page (toward the lower left of the
opposite page) presents blocks of color that display exhibition listings; this band
scrolls horizontally in relation to the user’s mouse direction and speed—a fun bit
of functionality that serves to highlight this featured content and add contrast
that offsets the page’s verticality.
___ The header is home to an extensive system of modular navigation links. It
expands in depth upon click and remains so until a link is selected or the user
clicks off. In a collapsed, smartphone context, the menu is drawn up into a
shallow header (containing the ubiquitous “hamburger” menu icon); it expands
as a list to cover the majority of the active screen area. The site’s color blocking
lends itself well to stacked scrolling as a single column within the smartphone
environment; the bold linear detailing of the typography contrasts the flat planes
and brings personality to the text.
DESIGN

Sagmeister+Walsh
New York, NY | USA
Website for the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum
31
Column Grid with Flexible Row Structure
This identity for a performing arts organization centers on typography anchoring
itself to structure, appearing to sink into it—visually, it creates the impression of
a massive presence on a stage. Although the four-column grid that organizes
layouts is relatively common, it’s the use of the row structure that distinguishes
it.
___ It’s especially visible in the posters above. Vertical positioning of elements
along the boundary between image and color field is determined by the row
divisions, which have a specific proportional relationship to the headline
typography. The row division, based on a proportion of type height, can be
multiplied or subdivided to create new vertical dimensions; the four columns
remain relatively consistent throughout the system.
DESIGN

Atlas
Balearic Islands | Spain
Visual brand identity for a municipal theater
32
Modular Grid with Scaled Deviations
Because the subject of this poster is a series of lectures about digital media, the
modular grid that is used to direct its composition and detailing is pixel like—
more or less like that of the “graph paper” variant, in which the modules butt
against each other.
___ The module is quite small, a square the width of the narrow spaces defined
in the configuration of the word “Digital.” It’s used to generate a basic column
structure for the lecture-info units, each marked by a large numeral, as well as to
structure the proportions of the secondary column structure that contains the
phrase “Digital Media.”
___ Within each column area, the info-unit is repeated on itself and shrunk,
proportionally, by some number of modules in depth. This creates a kind of
kinetic zooming inward to each info-unit and opens a space below the numerals
for date, speaker, and descriptive content. The repetition suggests not only a
time-lapse movement, but overlapping interface windows, sticky notes, and a
cut/paste quality that is associated with digital image making.
___ The repeated overlap is carried over to the main titling configuration and to
the announcement banner at the poster’s foot.
DESIGN

Skolos/Wedell
Canton, MA | USA
Poster promoting a lecture series at Rhode Island School of Design [RISD]
33
Modular Grid
This cookbook uses an 8 x 12 modular grid to permit precise control of recipe
configurations. Beyond that functional consideration, the designer further used
the grid’s precision to position supporting text and graphical elements, based on
the row depth and gutter.
___ An interesting deviation from the consistency of the grid’s presence is the
application of heavy rules that extend only the lengths of the recipe titles they
accompany; this slight organicism, although subtle, is nonetheless noticeable as
a welcome contrast to the overall rigidity of the presentation, as are the images
that ghost behind text when crossing the page gutter.
DESIGN

Robert McConnell Timothy Samara, Instructor

New York, NY | USA
Cookbook devoted to Sichuan cuisine and culture
34
Compound Grid / Modular+Hierarchic
Visitors to the Books of Hope site, a subsection of Brittanica.com, can interact
with some of the most important thinkers in the world, participate in discussions,
view biographies, and peruse an extensive image gallery. A hierarchical grid
houses the various areas and incorporates a number of interactive tools
developed specifically for the site: timelines, galleries, and a forum in which
users can respond to contributors’ essays.
___ The hierarchy is divided into four major areas: a branded navigational bar
relating to Brittanica.com; a navigational area housed in modules that expand or
collapse as needed; a left-hand column that acts as a lead-in or informational
addendum to the primary content; and the primary content area, which houses
timelines, essays, and biographies.
___ Each hierarchical area assumes importance or diminishes in importance
depending on where the user is located within the site; careful attention to type
sizes and luminosity differences between grid areas helps some information
recede when needed. The most important information in a particular screen
comes forward clearly.
___ The modular nature of the structure becomes evident in the interface details
such as markers, pagination icons, and menus.
DESIGN

Meta Design SF
San Francisco, CA | USA
Website/online forum developed as a subsection of Britannica.com
35
Compound Grid / Hierarchic+Rotated-Column
As its title, In Dialogue, suggests, this publication focuses on discussions and
interviews as a vehicle for understanding the academic environment it advances.
Initially, the grid use appears straightforward: a hierarchic, wide outer column
and a narrow inner column.
___ And then—images appear to cross between the two columns; text and
images both appear to scroll off the tops and bottoms of pages; and text starts to
leave the column boundaries altogether. Then, in a secondary section, all of the
content rotates 90°.
___ In the first section, the hierarchic grid in place is being cheated slightly.
Even though, for the most part, text occupies the wide column and images or
captions occupy the narrow one, the designers feel free to shift material around
in order to impart a casual, conversational tone to the layouts. The notion of
time, as it relates to the interplay of speakers, is also expressed by elements
traveling from one spread to another.
___ This quality becomes more pronounced in the second section noted, when a
new structure is introduced: a three-column grid, set to run sideways, and
occupying the same margins as the hierarchic grid. The change signals a change
in the content’s focus and plays up the movement of text and images across
boundaries, whether those of each other or the pages.
DESIGN

Level Design Group

New York, NY | USA
In Dialogue, a publication promoting the MFA Design program at Pratt Institute
 2 Breaking the Grid
Using a grid structure to organize text and imagery in visual communication is
part of the status quo of designing. It’s a convention and, like all conventions,
it is suitable for achieving particular goals. Designers are well advised to
remember that their purpose is to facilitate the clearest and most compelling
experiences for their audiences. Using a grid may not offer the best solution
toward that end; assuming that one should be imposed may, in fact,
compromise the information’s integrity.

Clarity can mean different things in different contexts: Sometimes content

has its own internal structure that must be upheld to be understood;
sometimes content must ignore structure altogether to create specific kinds
of emotional reaction, or to invoke an important narrative association;
sometimes it requires a more complex intellectual involvement on the part of
the audience in order to resonate more profoundly.

There are numerous ways to deliver understandable, meaningful experiences

that are equally valid—ways that run counter to the rationalist approach of
grid-based structure. Exploring alternative means for organizing and
visualizing content often creates opportunities to transcend its literal,
pragmatic meaning, and to engage and inform with a richer, more specific,
and uniquely memorable, visual language.
On the Other Hand—
A Historical Survey of Non-Structural Design Tendencies

Until the late twentieth century, the design industry tended to focus on the more
or less steadily increasing influence of rationalism when it traced its
development or promoted itself, and with good reason: emphasizing the
pragmatic, rational aspects of design helps clients understand and trust the
design industry as a resource. But every field of artistic endeavor comprises
different schools of thought, some of them contradictory, and graphic design is
no exception. Just as the use of grids in modern design practice grew from
developments in technology, aesthetic thought, and industrialization, the use of
alternate, intuitive methods of composition—prevalent in current design practice
—grew from these same influences.
___ Along with the marvels of mechanized production came a proficiency at
cruelty and destruction. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were
plagued by war on a scale that was previously unknown, facilitated by such
innovations as the Gatling gun, tanks, grenades, and mines. This madness,
coupled with Sigmund Freud’s publications about the human psyche, fueled an
exploration of the absurd and primal in art and design. As early as the 1880s, a
tendency toward primal image making as a reaction to the devastation of
machines and war began to find a voice: Art Nouveau’s sensual plant imagery
signaled a pursuit of the individual, organic, and idiosyncratic in design;
Expressionism’s aggressive works showed a growing preoccupation with
suffering in the human condition; Dada and Surrealism explored the
subconscious, dream states, and the absurdities of language and culture.
A NEW VISUAL REALITY
These latter movements began as reactions to World War I. Co-opting the
strange, new language of visual abstraction, the Dadaists applied it to verbal
language to express their horror over the war. In 1914, the poet Hugo Ball
opened the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich as a meeting place for poets, writers,
musicians, and artists who shared this outrage. They included Tristan Tzara, who
prepared their manifestos and edited the magazine DADA; Jean Arp, a painter
and sculptor; and, later, Marcel Duchamp, a painter who began his career as a
Cubist but was more fascinated by symbolism and linguistic games. Language
and experience became bound in Dada’s explosive word poems and nonsense
posters where words failed to correspond to any explicit meaning. In Dada,
letters and words are pictures of emotional or psychological states, and their
power comes from aggressive visual arrangements signifying those states, not as
carriers of literal meaning. Dada’s use of type as image was similar to that of
other movements, like Futurism, in which the visual treatment of information
was also used as a pictorial vehicle for the viewer’s associations. Filippo
Marinetti, Futurism’s founder, used repeated letterform patterns and dynamic
scale and placement to convey ideas about sound, motion, and the violent power
of machines.
___ Cubist and Symbolist poets in France also explored the syntactic portrayal
of writing through typography based on its spoken or verbal attributes. Stéphane
Mallarmé and Guillaume Appolinaire created word pictures in poems and essays
in which page structure was defined by the image. Appolinaire’s now-famous
concrete poem “Il Pleut” (“It’s Raining”) is organized in vertical lines that
resemble a picture of rain. Appolinaire and poets like him were influenced by
semiotics, the study of signs, from the writings of Charles Pierce, an American,
and Ferdinand de Saussure of France.
___ This poeticizing of visual expression—characterized by visual word play
and the signification of subject matter or actual experience by unrelated signs—
was rapidly becoming a trend in visual communication that would run counter to
the steady development of rationalism.
Le Hasard [Chance] / Poetry Study
After Stephane Mallarmé
Author’s schematic recreation, presented in English translation

ORDER AND DISORDER UNITED

Collage was another new visual analogy that built on the reenvisioning of form
begun in Cubism, which juxtaposed found images in dynamic relationships
where chance could play a role in the perception of meaning. The Berlin
Dadaists Hanna Hoch and Raoul Hausemann were among the first known artists
to employ collage. The designer and artist Kurt Schwitters, who worked in
Hanover, is particularly notable for helping to establish both grid-based and
irrational systems in design. Schwitters’s work as a Dadaist was supported by his
business as an advertising designer with prestigious accounts. His output of
collaged typographic clippings and refuse alternated with professional posters
and layouts for magazines, including his own, Merz, which featured articles and
visual essays based on his nonsense poems. Schwitters frequently collaborated
with Theo van Doesburg and El Lissitsky, blending his Constructivist interests
with those of Dada. Schwitters is one of several designers in the twentieth
century who helped assimilate and institutionalize nonrational design approaches
alongside those being pursued by rational structuralists.
___ The close association of irrational and rational approaches was also evident
in the Weimar Bauhaus before the school made a decisive shift toward
rationalism in its curriculum. Johannes Itten, a member of the Blaue Reiter group
of painters, was instrumental in setting up the Bauhaus foundation curriculum
which, among other things, stressed the exploration of personally derived
abstract mark making. Itten’s experiments in the type shop, before Moholy-Nagy
replaced him in 1923, had begun to incorporate painterly, nonrectilinear
composition, and the use of elements from the type case: he used lines of lead,
usually reserved for spacing, as a decorative element to visually enhance the
emphasis within type. In his 1921 publication, Utopia, Itten’s visionary
compositions merge concrete symbolist poetry and idiosyncratic expression with
intuitively structured pages.
Dada Collage / Found texts and materials
After similar works by Kurt Schwitters
Author’s interpretation
Utopia / Publication Page
Johannes Itten
©2003 Artists Rights Society (ARS)/New York ProLitteris Zurich

___ During the same period in the Netherlands, designers like Piet Zwart were
approaching the new abstraction from a different perspective. Dutch design
already had a history of innovation and intriguing use of symbolic, abstract form
dating back to Symbolist and Jugendstil designers like Jan Toorop and Johan
Thorn-Prikker in the late 1800s. Zwart’s use of montage and typographic
Thorn-Prikker in the late 1800s. Zwart’s use of montage and typographic
expressionism blended this Symbolist approach, the de Stijl purity of primary
color, and the dynamic composition of Dada and Futurism. Zwart’s work for
clients like NKF, an industrial cable manufacturing company, walked a line
between the structural and the intuitive, appropriately drawing on both systems
of thinking as dictated by the catalogue’s content.
___ World War II scattered and isolated a number of designers, and attention
shifted to innovative developments in Switzerland’s two cultural centers, Zurich
and Basel. Designers in Zurich pursued a rational intellectualism that privileged
typography and grid systems (see Coming to Order). Basel designers, on the
contrary—working in the context of that city’s humanist tradition—explored
richly meaningful form specific to each communication. They exploited the
narrative power of signs and diverse image languages to produce lyrical and
evocative communications. The work of Nelly Rudin, Igildo Biesele, and Armin
Hoffmann embodied these principles—which Hoffmann promulgated as director
of the Basel design school. In 1942, he enlisted Emil Ruder as typography
teacher. Both Ruder’s work and teaching method focused on typography that
derived from a structural perspective, but he also focused on clearly integrating
it with imagery by stressing its pictorial potential. Unlike Müller-Brockmann,
Ruder freely mixed weight, slant, and size changes, even within single lines of
type, to achieve a semiotic representation of language. In his 1960 book,
Typography, Ruder devotes several pages to a discussion of grids, but nowhere
near as much space as he devotes to the exposition of type as an image with
intrinsic semantic visual qualities. The paradox of Ruder’s work is that his
rigorous approach to examining these qualities led him not only to anticipate the
appearance of deconstructive work among his students, but to create it himself.
Radikal Liste 1 / Poster
Emil Ruder
Reproduced from Typography Niggli Verlag, Zurich, 1960

___ In his experiments using the Univers family of typefaces, for example, he
visually communicates notions about physical or emotional state in compositions
like Jazz, splitting up and crossing columns diagonally by aligning words on an
angle. Other experiments, in which he expresses the meaning of words by
altering their visual construction, show that he was investigating ideas initiated
by Dada and Futurist designers in the 1920s, like Schwitters and Marinetti.
___ Seen this way, Ruder’s work is a nexus point in codifying those syntactic
and semiotic experiments within the framework of the International Style as it
was developing: he actively helped assimilate the seeds of grid deconstruction
into the rational aesthetic of structuralist graphic design. As a teacher, his
experiments and interaction with his students would become profoundly
influential.
Typographic Rhythm Study
After Emil Ruder / From studies in his book Typography Author’s schematic recreation
Semantic Word Study
After Emil Ruder / From studies in his book Typography Author’s schematic recreation

AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT

By the mid-1960s, the International Style was becoming entrenched as a design
methodology in Europe and the United States. Students from the Basel and
Zurich schools—and also from the Kunstgewerbeschule in Ulm, Germany—
were disseminating its reductive aesthetic. Corporations benefited from the
unifying and cost-efficient aspects of the grid-based identity systems that these
students advocated. But as the younger design community—along with everyone
else—continued its recovery from the second World War, it was becoming
increasingly critical of established ways of thinking, increasingly wary of
corporate and governmental motives, and increasingly interested in opposing the
kind of classist impulses that had repressed and brutalized specific groups of
people in the war. In the United States, the civil rights movement drew attention
to disenfranchised groups; revolutions in Cuba and China evinced similar kinds
of unrest. In the midst of the International Style’s methodical efficiency, a search
for expression based on personal experience and narrative was catalyzed by the
visceral thump of rock n’ roll, the sexual revolution, and the rise of popular
youth culture. Pyschedelia, television, and a rediscovery of Art Nouveau gave
rise to design idioms and countermovements that don’t fit neatly into the bigger
trends: Victor Moscoso and Haight-Ashbury psychedelic rock posters on the
West Coast of America; Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, and the idiosyncratic,
historical illustrative style of the PushPin Group; and the “big idea” conceptual
advertising of Bob Gill, Bill Bernbach, and Henry Wolf. These and other
approaches flourished in the 1960s and 1970s despite the International Style;
they worked around Modernism, quietly influencing dramatic changes that
would happen within.
___ In Basel, Emil Ruder’s students were studying fundamental typographic
principles when a young typesetter’s apprentice from Stuttgart joined the school.
Wolfgang Weingart had been trained in a traditional German type shop, but had
been exposed to the work of Hofmann, Müller-Brockman, and Ruder by an older
apprentice; fascinated by the unfamiliar image-oriented typographic approach of
the Swiss, he had come to Basel in 1964 to be trained as a designer. His personal
type shop experiments, which incorporated the accidental printing of letterpress
material—like the lead lines used to separate individual lines of type—had given
him entry to the school. But Ruder’s methodical exploration of typographic
nuance intimidated and bored Weingart, who was more comfortable making
images with elements from the type case.
Geigy / Brochure Cover
Steff Geissbühler
Courtesy of the designer
Was Ich Morgen... / Typographic study
Wolfgang Weingart
Courtesy of the designer

Having absorbed a good deal of Swiss thinking in his apprenticeship, however,

Weingart began his own systematic exploration of typographic form, but with a
marked difference: it extrapolated the idea of visually semantic composition—
type that bases its visual form on the verbal structure of the words it represents—
beyond the functional presentation sought by Ruder, and into a personal,
idiosyncratic, and texturally expressive approach akin to painting.
Weingart looked at the understructures and absolute formal qualities of the
material he was working with as indicators of potential new ways to compose.
material he was working with as indicators of potential new ways to compose.
Highlighting groups of words in proximity to each other with reversed-out white
areas created secondary sentences playing in the paragraph; filling in the
negative spaces created by the ragged edge of a paragraph added architectural
impact on a page; and combining letterforms into new shapes or spacing them
out in self-consciously visual arrangements emphasized their structural qualities
or made reference to forms in the environment.
___ Weingart uncovered a new visual potential for language by deconstructing
it, and the significance of this work was profound. It implied that rational
structure—the grid—could be one of many possible systems for organizing
visual material, and that context is an important factor in determining which
system is best for a specific project.
Austellung / Poster
Wolfgang Weingart
Courtesy of the designer
Typographische Monatsblätter / Journal Cover
Wolfgang Weingart
Courtesy of the designer

THE ICONOCLASTS AND THE ACADEMY

In 1968, Armin Hofmann asked Weingart to teach. At the same time, Weingart
was being asked to lecture and show his work around the world. His
typographical approach, in concert with the teaching of Hofmann, influenced
generations of Basel students. The individuality of his approach was especially
appealing to young design students, who were now coming to Basel from a
number of countries. Among them were Americans like April Greiman, a
student of Basel graduates Hans U. Allemann, Inge Druckrey, and Christine
Zelinsky at the Kansas City Art Institute in Missouri. Weingart’s dimensional
approach to space and his mixing of textures had a tremendous impact on her
design process. She returned to America, freelanced and taught in Philadelphia,
Boston, and New York, and eventually landed in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.
___ Greiman began experimenting with various emerging technologies, like
video, in combination with found images and conventional printing techniques,
which continued to define the new visual language of Basel and similarly
oriented design schools. Other students, as well as those who went on to teach—
at schools like Philadelphia College of Art and Carnegie Mellon—and to work in
New York and Los Angeles, brought the mixture of discipline and
experimentation with them. A “New Wave” of Swiss and Swiss-trained
designers—Dan Friedman, Valerie Pettis, Willi Kunz, Steff Geissbuhler, Chris
Myers—joined Greiman and others in assimilating this new development into
the mainstream of design practice.

Vitra Workspirit / Product brochure

April Greiman
Courtesy of the designer

NEW DISCOURSES IN FORM

In 1970, a recently graduated industrial designer in Chicago named Katherine
McCoy found herself in a graphic design position at Unimark International,
working in the minimal Swiss International Style that Unimark was employing
to reshape the corporate visual world. After a year, she began to teach graphic
design at Cranbrook Academy, an art and design institution in Michigan with a
long history of involvement in avant-garde architecture. McCoy’s initial
curricula were derivative of the grid-based typographic methods she had become
accustomed to at Unimark. But in the experimental and highly intellectual
environment of Cranbrook, she and her fellow faculty began to consider the
visual system they were perpetuating. By this time, Weingart’s experiments were
becoming widely known.

Cranbrook Graduate Design / Poster

Katherine McCoy
Courtesy of the designer
___ In addition, the writings of architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-
Brown were having a wide impact. Their seminal 1972 book, Learning from Las
Vegas, helped establish a radical new regard for the vernacular: rather than
dismiss garish, naïve, and popular visual expressions like drive-ins and gambling
strips, designers could incorporate these idiosyncratic forms as a way of
resonating on a more personal level with their audiences. McCoy’s close friend
(and later Cranbrook student), Edward Fella, was particularly interested in
vernacular signage and lettering; others began to explore game show
iconography, historic type forms, and coding systems as sources for visualization
that would create a graphic counterpart to the ideas Venturi and Scott-Brown
were propagating.
___ Political and social concerns came to the forefront of designers’ minds once
again; at Cranbrook and on the West Coast, these pop culture deformations were
giving voice to discussions about race, gender, and class by visually
distinguishing them from the smooth veneer of the corporate International Style.
A second result was that they also separated from what they considered an East
Coast/European design establishment. Many designers from that establishment
viewed the work at Cranbrook through a filter that categorized it as either simply
ugly or as morally wrong, a repudiation of the progress for which Modernism
had struggled.
See/Read/Image/Text:
Cranbrook Graduate Design / Poster
Katherine McCoy
Courtesy of the designer

___ Within the design counterculture, however, the sense that they were
exploring a late form of Modernism, a self-critical and mannered form, pervaded
their experiments. During the period between 1971 and 1984, the word
deconstruction was coined to describe their intentions: to break apart
preconceived structures, or to use those structures as a starting point for new
avenues of discovery. In addition to Venturi and Scott-Brown’s writings,
influences like that of the poststructural philosopher Michel Foucault and the
semiotician Roland Barthes, as well as visual influences from the Swiss New
Wave, were filtering into the mix. Dissecting these varied sources and then
rebuilding exaggerated configurations of type and image based on the findings
became the hallmark of work produced at Cranbrook by designers like Robert
Nakata, Allen Hori, Lorraine Wilde, Lucille Tenazas, Scott Santoro, Laurie
Haycock (Makela), and P. Scott Makela.
Cranbrook wasn’t the only hotbed of such investigation during the 1970s and
early 1980s. East Coast designers and educational institutions assimilated their
Western counterparts’ output and recognized their own countercultural impulses
—especially around the environs of New York City, the birthplace of Pop Art, a
movement that celebrated the vernacular, and the influence of which was
increasingly prevalent. Sheila deBretteville, educated at Barnard College, mixed
Feminist activism and public art-making with such vernacular images as eye-
bolts and quilting. Pop and activism informed the work of Warren Lehrer, a Yale
graduate, who explored deconstructions of vernacular imagery and typography
to reveal “the vagaries and luminescence of character, the relationships between
social structures and the individual, and the pathos and absurdity of life.” His
books, in particular French Fries, merge a variety of graphic and metaphorical
gestures.
Tulipstoolong / Poster
Allen Hori
Courtesy of the designer
French Fries / Book spread
Warren Lehrer
Courtesy of the designer

THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

And then—the computer happened. Apple Computer’s 1984 introduction of the
desktop computer with a graphical interface yielded a revolution in design
practice similar in scale to that of the Industrial Revolution of the 1780s.
Designers were quick to exploit the new technology for the rapid and seamless
manipulation of image and type that its programs facilitated. April Greiman’s
work incorporated the image-editing capability of the computer into her process
of hybridizing media, typography, and perceptual space. Cranbrook’s
investigations were catalyzed by these same new capabilities, which extrapolated
their already challenging deconstructions into three-dimensional space.
Sci-Arc Summer Programs / Poster
April Greiman
Courtesy of the designer

FROM AN UNEXPECTED QUARTER

The shift from traditional hand skills to digital designing and production
introduced highlevel digital editing and typesetting to a vast audience; in this
way, the incorporation of vernacular modes of expression was complemented by
a reverse assimilation of design craft by individuals who weren’t trained as
graphic designers. David Carson epitomized this paradigmatic shift.
___ A surfer and sociology graduate, Carson came to design by working at
Beach Culture, a California surf magazine. His unstudied layouts relied on an
intuitive sense of placement that spoke more about interpreting the experience of
the content, not about rationally or impartially organizing it. By using the
extensive typesetting capabilities of the computer, Carson was able to explore
typographic arrangements and effects that had been impossible before its
invention: overlapping lines of type and letters that flipped backwards and
forwards, dense textures of type and image, and columns of type whose contours
weren’t parallel—or, for that matter, straight lines at all. Where the Cranbrook
experiments were still referring to the idea of structure, Carson’s work ignored
it. In his design of the culture magazine Raygun, published between 1991 and
1996, no overarching structure exists; the ferocity of the layouts and the
continual destruction of conformity on every page visually define a system that
is identifiable and understandable, despite the lack of a consistent editorial grid
structure.
___ This type of system for generating visual cohesion through intuitive,
spontaneous relationships was further popularized by the work of the American
type publishers Emigre, by British designers like Siobahn Keaney and Jonathan
Barnbrook, and by firms like Why Not Associates. In project after project, these
designers were violating conventional ideas about structure in favor of
organization that reflected ideas about time, film, and the expanding world of
digital interactivity.
___ As designers have assimilated the computer’s visual capabilities and its
ubiquitous presence in daily life—as well as innovations in conceptual
visualization—the notion of experientially driven presentation has gained
importance as a viable, user-centric method for organizing information.
Interactive media, in particular, has changed the way people access and process
information. Intuitive and idiosyncratic approaches to organization participate on
equal terms with rational approaches based on grid structures. The designer’s set
of tools now includes several methods for conveying ideas from which the
designer can choose the most appropriate for a given project.
Hanging at Carmine Street / Spread from Beach Culture
David Carson
Courtesy of the designer
Raygun/Periodical spreads
David Carson
Courtesy of the designer
Typography Now / Book spread
Why Not Associates
Published by Booth-Clibborn Editions, 1991 Courtesy of Andy Bell
Alternative Architectures
Designers need not totally discard the notion of structure in their search for
compositional options beyond the grid. One possibility is deconstruction:
taking apart or subverting a grid to generate new spatial relationships. But,
there are also many kinds of structure that happen to not be based on a logic
of repeating, modular—or even orthogonal (90°)—geometry. They may derive
from those found in nature, such as are seen in crystals and molecules, or the
branches of trees; they may derive just as easily from mathematical or formal
relationships, like those that are nested or concentric.

The appreciation of a particular structure often instigates an association with

certain physical experiences—and so non-grid-based structures, too, can
impart metaphorical or narrative understanding. Being familiar with, and
open to, a variety of arrangement possibilities gives designers greater
lattitude to best architect a project’s space and thereby serve the content’s
needs.
Here, an underlying grid has been violated in subtle ways: the title type baseline has slipped
under the red flowlines; two shifting planes of tonality throw space into question. In addition, a
simple verbal breakdown in the title hints at another kind of deconstruction.
Simon Johnston/USA
This artist’s website presents information and free-form arrangements of her work organized
symmetrically on both the horizontal and vertical axes.
Meeus Ontwerpt/Netherlands

The designers of this poster slice apart its pictorial space along diagonal axes that radiate from a
fixed point. The resulting dramatic, dimensional planes create a deep, illusory perspective that
exaggerates the vast, industrial spaces of the building that the poster promotes for a variety of
uses.
Insect/UK
Grid Deconstruction: Orthogonal

Splitting, Splicing, and Shifting

Altering a familiar structure—even a simple, two-or three-column grid—is an

excellent introduction to exploring alternative kinds of structure; and the most
straightforward way of altering it is to manipulate it along its inherent orthogonal
axes. The process for doing so is relatively simple: First, the designer installs a
base grid... And then changes how columns and rows relate to each other—by
separating them at irregular intervals; “cutting” through them in the opposing
direction and sliding the “parts” horizontally or vertically, together or separately;
by widening some columns and rows but not others; and so on. It’s important to
watch what happens when information that would normally appear in an
expected place—marking a structural juncture in the grid—is moved to another
place, perhaps aligned with some other kind of information in a way that creates
a new verbal connection that didn’t exist before. Such shifted information might
end up behind or on top of some other information if a change in size or density
accompanies the shift in placement. The optical confusion that results will often
create situations where foreground and background appear to swap places. A
conventional grid structure repeated in different orientations could be used to
explore a more dynamic architectural space by creating different axes of
alignment. Similarly, overlapping grids with modules of different proportions, or
that run at right angles in relation to each other, can introduce a kind of order to
the spatial and directional ambiguity that layering creates, especially if some
elements are oriented on both layers simultaneously.
In the group of experimental broadsides shown above, a classical four-column structure
sequentially gives way to a three-dimensional space in which columns intersect, overlap, and
rotate into each other. The base grid is diagrammed under each new panel’s deconstruction
method to show the cumulative effects of new alterations on the structure at each stage.
Jenny Chan/USA
The conventional calendar grid that gave rise to this poster’s overlapping layers remains as a
vestige to help navigation; although only a hint of the modular structure is visible in the stepped
movement of informational chunks, the blue row structure directs reading from a familiar
standpoint. Images that might originaly have occupied left-and right-hand columns have been
spliced and reordered to create a strong vertical substructure.
Tenazas Design/USA
Complex grid splicing and shifting may be used even for typically simple format applications, as
seen in this unconventionally dynamic business card that emphasizes the “distinctive” aspect of
its owner’s floral work.
Mayer+Myers Design/USA
Grid Deconstruction: Non-Orthogonal

Deformation and Distortion

In contrast to splicing and shifting, altering the actual shapes of columns and
rows produces a compositional effect that is far more organic, where the
orthogonal underpinning of the base grid’s structure becomes less apparent.
Pulling edges of columns and rows out of parallel alignment emphasizes
diagonal axes. Structures that are reshaped this way may still be organized side-
by-side, so to speak, so as to appear as though they occupy the same surface; or,
they may be shifted or rotated to move over or under each other. This kind of
deformation often results in the illusion of perspective as newly created angles
converge; the effect is greatly enhanced if content within columns changes in
size or spacing to correspond with perceived changes in spatial location from
near to far. Of course, columns and rows may be deformed to be curvilinear, not
only angular, in shape—whether as circles, waves, or free-form organic shapes.
A simple modular grid, without gutters between modules, is the starting point for a dimensional
deconstruction. Groups of flowlines and column lines are distorted to explore possibilities of
exaggerated illusory space and dimensionality.
Kristie Williams/USA
Deformed structures in these two magazine spreads yield different spatial experiences: The
trapezoidal columns in the spread at top appear to tensely butt against each other on the surface;
paragraphs and images in the spread at bottom appear as tilted planes within a dimensional
space.
Thomas Ockerse/USA
Given that the conventional scrolling function of webpages can rapidly regularize perceived
movement into a vertically constrained stream, grid deformation can introduce greater,
unexpected, lateral movement and a perception of deeper space for improved visual interest. As
columns’ or rows’ altered shapes come into view within the browser area and then recede, their
irregularity is abruptly reinforced by the orthogonal consistency of the browser “window’s”
edges.
Curvilinear deformations in this poster’s structures retain their familiar column characteristics—
which help viewers parse the unexpected shapes for text and images—while contributing an
equally recognizable pictorial reference that supports communication of the poster’s subject
matter on a more inventive narrative level.
TImothy Samara/USA
Verbal and Editorial Deconstruction

Verbal or conceptual cues within the content can be used to break a grid
structure—or create a new one entirely. The natural rhythm of spoken language,
for example, is often used as a guide for changing weight, size, color, or
alignment among lines of type; louder or “faster” words may be set in larger or
bolder type or in italics, corresponding to stresses and lulls in actual speech.
Giving a “voice” to visual language can help alter the structure of a text by
pushing words out of paragraphs or forcing modules or columns into
relationships where the natural logic of the writing creates a visual order.
For example, treating all of the adjectives in a particular way would create a
secondary structure with a rhythmic, organic quality. Breaking phrases and
words apart in a running text calls attention to the individual parts of speech; the
presumed reading order may begin to change for the reader. Although generally
this would interfere with reading, in some cases the resulting ambiguity may be
appropriate to the content of the text, yielding associations between words or
images that can be used to augment and comment upon its literal meaning.
Both informational and conceptual, the verbal deconstruction of the title derives from chemical
names in this exhibition poster designed for a pharmaceutical company. The deconstruction
visually treats the title type, as well as communicates the nature of the company’s business.
Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv [Steff Geissbühler]/USA
In this example, a conventional text is gradually deconstructed over many pages. The designer’s
process of breaking apart the page form begins with the introduction of space between phrases
and then between words; the verbal structure of the essay is brought into focus, while the visual
clarity is decreased. The running text becomes a texture where the regularized spaces between
words imply multiple reading directions.
Katherine McCoy/USA
Text in this book consists of dialogue between a number of characters; the “voice” of each is
coded by characterizations of typeface style, keyed to a legend running in the head margins.
Conventional columns are deconstructed or violated by the quality of the spoken dialogue—
falling apart, becoming confused, or aggressively interrupting each other, depending on the flow
of the dialogue.
Warren Lehrer/USA
Slowly spoken phrases contrast with sharp, abrupt outbursts; repetitions of adjectives emphasize
the experiential over the expository. These qualities of spoken and written language can be made
visual, more than simply as a tool for clarifying hierarchy, and not just as intriguing eye candy—
but to lay bare an author’s methods and intent. It might even improve readability—the quality of
and the degree to which the type engages its readers with the content.
———
The text in these examples is powerfully altered by visually deconstructing its internal parts. In
the first version, size change alone affects the sense of the text’s loudness, creating a crescendo.
———
In the second version, calling out specific parts through changes in weight, posture, width, and
spacing produces a rhythmic journey—slowing down, speeding up.
———
In the third version, visual changes are applied to distinguish linguistic and conceptual
relationships among different parts of the text. This approach provides the added bonus of giving
the reader a snapshot of the content before fully engaging the text.
Centered-Axis Structure

Centered-axis (symmetrical) composition is what might be termed the classical,

or traditional, page architecture in which elements are arranged in response to a
format’s center, halfway between left and right edges or top and bottom edges
(and, sometimes, in response to each others’ central axes, independent of those
in the format).
___ Although material in centered layouts may be guided in its proportions or
positions by a grid, centering is structurally antithetical to grid-based
visualization. This is because it assumes only one governing alignment axis;
because that axis is “buried” within the area of the material, rather than marked
by its contours; and because the exterior contours, widths, and depths of centered
elements are mutually interdependent—not subject to predetermined intervals,
but driven by their fit and relative proportion as they come into a central
alignment. Elements in centered layouts stack, in sequential fashion, from top to
bottom or left to right. The shapes of the elements to either side of the axis are
identical, as are the shapes and intervals of negative spaces to further beyond.
___ The primary visual result of centered-axis architecture is a sense of
immediacy, or unfussy directness, followed by what appears to be formal
simplicity, as the material’s quality as a unit dominates the perception of internal
divisions and emphasizes the total grouping as a shape within the page or screen
area.

Within a symmetrical composition, elements (or groups thereof) may respond to a format’s
vertical, horizontal, or diagonal axis (shown left to right, respectively).
Symmetry is described as bilateral (left) if form elements’ centers align with the axis, straddling
it, as well as mirror each other across the axis. In rotational symmetry (middle), elements invert
in their orientation relative to the axis. Arranging forms symmetrically around two axes creates
greater complexity (right).
Typographic and planar image forms in this poster primarily situate around the format’s central
vertical axis, although the title reads across both vertial and horizontal axes. Supporting
information plays with rotational and diagonal axis symmetries.
Skolos/Wedell/USA
Symmetry and asymmetry rarely combine effectively, but bringing these two kinds of
organizational structure into confrontation can yield interesting results, so long as the two
compositional states are distinct. Each of the two advertisements shown here initiate a tense
dialogue between symmetrical and asymmetrical compositional logic.
Timothy Samara/USA

In some ways, symmetry is unforgiving with regard to layout flexibility because

it demands that all elements adhere to a single axis; those that don’t typically
appear disunified from the whole. The restfulness and overall uniformity that
results can be problematic relative to the goals of designed communication—a
viewer is likely to gloss over material and come to an intellectual rest quickly,
rather than investigate a work more intently. Exaggerating contrasts in scale (or
proportion) and spacing (density and rhythm) when working with symmetrical
compositions is critical to ensuring optical vitality and, therefore, greater viewer
engagement.

When symmetrically organized forms become so large that they are clearly bigger than any
remaining symmetrical spaces, their confrontation with the format becomes very tense, reducing
the composition’s overall static quality.
Another strategy for introducing contrast is to juxtapose dramatically different emphases in
proportion, both among form elements and the spaces that separate them. It’s important to
define a logic of progression or alternations of shape proportions and distance intervals between
them as they’re distributed along the axis from beginning to end.
Radical changes in size among elements, or in their relative lightness and darkness, help enhance
the illusion of deep space and, therefore, reorder their lateral movement dimensionally—that is,
movement becomes perceived as also occurring from near to far.
This centered-axis book spread defines a number of strong contrasts between left and right
pages, as well as internally within each: geomtric versus organic; vertically expansive versus
inwardly clustered; and crispness versus softness in edge texture.
Sagmeister+Walsh/USA
Maintaining a logic of contrasting form widths and margin spaces is easily accomplished in a
webpage displayed in the generously wide format of a desktop browser (left), but more
challenging to achieve within the narrow confines of a smartphone’s screen (right). Forcing text
elements to occupy a narrower-than optimal width, and introducing punctuating graphical forms,
permits some of the contrast in lateral emphasis to translate into the smaller viewing area.
The designer of this cookbook spread creates a stark counterpoint between hard, geometric
forms (the vertical line at left; the inset image’s rectangle) and organic ones (the irregular widths
and soft rag shapes of the type) for an initially broad gesture of contrast. At this level, these three
primary forms (line, text column, image rectangle) also express dramatic differences in their
depths and the relations of their edges to the format. Further, the type itself, as a distinct unit,
exhibits contrasts in relative sharpness, width of internal components, depth proportion, and
depth interval.
Kiyoko Shiromasa/USA
Other Kinds of Geometric Structure

Inserting any form (even a solitary one) into a space creates structure—a set of
visual relationships between its contour (the shape of its outer boundary) and
axis (an imaginary line that separates its halves), and those of other forms.
Because of our orientation to Earth, we typically perceive forms as expressing
two primary axes—horizontal and vertical, or orthogonal—grid structure.
___ But structures may be more complex than that. Nature is perhaps the most
prolifically inventive “designer” of structures that have nothing to do with the
orthogonal: The radial arrangement of flower petals; the irregular axes of stars in
constellations and the spirals of galaxies; the hexagonal lattices of molecules in a
crystal; and the helical whorl of DNA are but a few examples of natural
structures without horizontal and vertical axes, that yet express some degree of
geometricity. Furthermore, any structure may be fluid and irregular in proportion
or interval: simply because an arrangement presents no perceptible repetition or
pattern among its parts doesn’t discredit it as a structure.
___ Being completely objective, the choice of one structural approach is no
more valid, on a functional level, than that of another. Every kind of structure
will have implications for the display of content. The different qualities of each,
however, will impart extremely different perceptions of content and, therefore,
of its meaning—especially if that structure is one a viewer is likely to associate
with some concrete experience. If an arrangement is structured like a tree, for
instance, the viewer will interpret it as a tree. Designers must still confront the
issue of a structure’s relevance on a communicative level.
The intervals between musical notes or chords—the octave established by the seven unique tonal
pitches in Western music—have been used by book designers to create page divisions since the
Middle Ages. Similarly to pitch intervals, rhythmic or thematic alternation methods used for
structuring musical compositions can be applied to the distances between elements in a layout:
A/B/A, for example, or A/B/A/C, in which A is one measurement, B another, and so on.

Any numeric progression or fractional relationship can be a starting point for creating spatial
divisions—odd-number ratios (1:3:5:7), for example, as shown in the first example. A thirteenth-
century Italian mathematician, Leonardo Fibonacci, discovered a natural progression of numbers
in which each number is the sum of the preceding two—for example, 1:1:2:3:5:8:13:21:34, and so
on. Coincidentally, this same proportional relationship is what drives the Golden Section.
There are numerous compositional structures that vary between geometric and organic, rigid and
irregular. These structural approaches are by no means comprehensive, nor must they be used
independently of each other; combining different kinds of structural approach offers the designer
infinite possibilities for organizing content and adding new levels of meaning.
Other Kinds of Geometric Structure

The visual representation of this spoken story is organized on a structure of concentric circular
fields. The choice of the circle is conceptual, representing the cyclical aspect of life and the
outward movement of the sound of a speaker’s voice. The text moves around the outside of the
primary circle that defines the spreads. As key phrases or words are delivered, they move into and
through the circle, becoming augmented in size and motion. Subsequent text overlays previous
text, giving continuity to the parts. The concentric rings create columns that are still visible, and
which provide the same function as their conventional counterparts, separating thoughts and
organizing passages into distinct parcels of information for accessibility.
Julie Saunders Carlini/USA
This design for a science center’s donor wall focuses on a relevant, universal scientific concept—
fractal structure—a natural phenomenon and mathematical set consisting of complex, infinite
patterns exhibiting self-similarity displayed at all scales.
Poulin+Morris/USA
The apparent complexity of the typography in the page spread, above, belies a simple, underlying
geometric structure: vertical lines of differing widths and depths.
Designer unknown; Timothy Samara/USA, Instructor
This invitation to attend performances in a youth orchestra festival organizes information in a
diagonal structure that is no less clear than it would have been if ordered by a grid, and no less
direct than had it been organized symmetrically—but ever more memorable as a result of its
unexpected structure.
Paone Design Associates/USA
A triangular formation of intersecting lines establishes a recognizably consistent, yet flexible,
underpinning for the visual identity of a student art organization (“Studio of Light”). Correct
reading sequence depends on careful application of darker color and less-rotated orientation to
the first of the three words.
Niessen & deVries/Netherlands
Intuitive, Relational, and Conceptual

As an antidote to structure, which implies analytical intent, designers may

determine that spontaneous approaches are more relevant for the task at
hand—working by the seat of their pants, as it were, and allowing purely
formal instincts to supercede the rational. Equally liberating are strategies
that depend on chance for their results, as are those that source their visual
arrangements in the metaphorical aspects of visual storytelling.

The vigorous composition of this poster defies the rational approach of structural thinking. A
loose structure is implied by the horizontal linear divisions created by secondary type, but
otherwise the layout is entirely intuitive. Its strength, however, lies in this dynamic, instinctive
positioning and treatment of forms. The raw texture of the letters and background, the
overlapping of forms that refer to the legible information create a kinetic experience that is both
filmic and reminiscent of tattered street posters.
David Carson/USA

Exercises in spontaneity need not result in lavishly complex, densely layered, or unusually
challenging spatial ambiguity. The relationships among photographic and typographic elements
in these book spreads, although entirely intuitive in their arrangement, nonetheless present
complex information in a quiet, lyrical rhythm that is easily digestible.
Timothy Samara/USA
Spontaneous Composition

This compositional method can be described as the intuitive placement of

material based on its formal aspects: seeing inherent visual relationships within
the material and making connections for the viewer based on those relationships.
Designers often will use this method as a step in the process of building a grid,
but its use as an organizational idea on its own is just as valid.
___ This approach starts fast and loose: The designer works with the material
much like a painter does, making quick decisions as the material is put together
and the relationships are first seen. As the different optical qualities of the
elements begin to interact, the designer can determine which qualities are
affected by those initial decisions and make adjustments to enhance or negate the
qualities in whatever way is most appropriate for the communication.
___ The method’s inherent liveliness has an affinity with collage; its sense of
immediacy and directness can be very inviting to viewers, providing them with a
simple and gratifying experience that is very accessible.
The organization of material in this journal cover is optical and intuitive. Deteriorating fields of
type where the disintegration has emphasized its flat, textural rhythm contrast a deep,
ambiguous space created by softly textural shadow forms. Sharp, inset photographs with clear
depth of field contrast with the indistinct background and, in concert with the two primary
headlines, offset the verticality of the two side-by-side images with lateral horizontal and
diagonal movement.
Dan Boyarski/USA

Creating areas of differing presence or quality—what is known as “contrast”—is crucial; it’s what
imparts vitality and ensures that viewers remain engaged as they analyze the varieties of visual
opposition with which the designer confronts them. There are perhaps hundreds of individual
kinds of contrasting relationships a designer may integrate within a single format space, the
range of which is merely hinted at in the illustrations shown opposite.
Spontaneous Composition

Patterned arrangements of pattern elements—stripes, steps, bricks, frames, grid clusters—invade

and dissect each other across shifting positive and negative planes.
Steff Geissbühler/USA
Following linguistic deconstructions to visualize a vocal journey through a poem, changes in
typographic scale and texture are intuitively balanced across the format: geometric stepping and
orthogonal, linear structures confront rotated and diagonal ones at differing scales, in different
locations, to highlight their contrasting qualities while ensuring that these are always in dialogue
throughout the space.
Young Kim/USA
Angular and linear type forms in step-like, orthogonal arrangements provide visual connective
tissue between soft, irregular fields of color that are distributed organically around the perimeter
of this poster’s format area.
David Carson/USA
The dynamic arrangement of tumbling inset images, graphical planes of intense color, diagrams,
and paragraphs of text lends a playful, kinetic quality to this agenda booklet. The initial
appearance of randomness slowly gives way to a variety of axis intersections and directional
emphases established by the edges of the rectilinear forms, which “point” to each other across
the pages. Careful attention to color and value differences among the elements orders them
spatially such that each alternately advances or recedes in a recognizable sequence.
Niessen & deVries/Netherlands
Imagery as a Source

A designer’s focus during the process of laying out content is often concerned
with typography, whether related to organizing extensive text for reading or
visually integrating typographic gestures with image material. Bringing these
two kinds of visual form together is notoriously challenging: each has its own
formal characteristics that are most often at odds with the other, and it is often
assumed that the two should be mutually dominant and referential. But what
happens if the visual aspects of imagery are allowed to rule, so to speak—to
determine not only the compositional structure of a project overall, but the
compositional and stylistic attributes of the type? As a source for organization
and typographic integration, looking to the imagery as primary inspiration can
offer yet another strategy for developing layouts.
___ Typography is always a pattern of lines, but images present a radically
greater range of form languages that, when applied to text, can quickly relieve a
designer of presumptions about how text should behave in a layout, or how
layouts themselves ought to be organized. Driving compositional decisions
based primarily on imagery can take two basic directions: First, in which
typographic elements become, in essence, part of the imagery; and second, in
which the imagery sets up the logic for how type responds to imagery in a
pictorial way while retaining its identity as a separate entity alongside images.

The titling and text typography in this exhibiton poster are composed and styled to become one
with the field of forensic bone images—cut and pasted together as specimens and notations
photographed on a copy-camera positioning platform as is used to record items found in
archaeological digs. Transparency, overlapped edges and borders, and misaligned grids within
the imagery inform font choices and their treatments, as well as force text into rcetangular cut-
out areas that appear grid-based at first, but really aren’t.
Kristin Hughes [with Ink Design]/USA
Transformations to a neutral icon (a fishing rod) serve as the primary source for the compositions
of these posters about overfishing:
———
At top left, the regular, overlapping repetition of icons suggests excessive human activity; the
title “Enough?” is caught behind it.
———
At upper right, the icon is invaded by organisms, a reference to algae infestation; the title’s color
connects its meaning to that of the icon, while its position is a response to that of the title in the
first poster.
———
In the poster at lower left, an oozing form suggestive of pollution obscures the icon,
overwhelming it and, so too, the word “invade.”
———
In the series’ summary poster, lower right, the broken forms of the icon, reminiscent of bones, is
restated by the title, “toolate.”
Eri Kuwada/Japan
In this selection of pages from a promotional calendar, a subtle, organic logic creates variation in
the matrix that orders each month’s weekdays and date numerals.
———
Each photograph presents a different set of formal conditions: a presence of strong vertical forms
or lack thereof; variations in the position of the horizon line; vertical alignments of high-contrast
details or a grouping of horizontal spatial divisions; the concentration of a dark mass at one
corner or another; and so on.
———
In response to each image, the calendar grid changes in three ways—in width, depth, and in the
weekday list’s orientation relative to the date matrix. These simple alterations result in variations
of typographic density, interval, and vertical/horizontal emphasis—as well as axis relationships—
that establish specific compositional relationships with each respective image.
Willi Kunz Studio/USA

Setting the relatively extensive running text flush right emphasizes the difference between its
aligned edges and irregular rags, qualities derived from the hard, soft, dark, and light stems of the
bamboo image. The type’s correlation with the image is further enhanced by enlarging and
bolding selected lines of text as a reference to the bamboo’s leaves.
Soo Yoon Kim/USA
The type in this study, although situated in a separate space, unifies with the adjacent image by
virtue of its shaping into arcs and dots. The sizes of the text elements, as well as their positions
and the specific radii of their curves, aren’t direct repetitions of any such formal attribute in the
image; the mere fact of them is enough to create the visual connection.
Designer unknown; Timothy Samara/USA, Instructor

An image of one of Alexander Calder’s famous kinetic sculptures creates a foundation for the
type’s layout in this invitation.
Lynn Fylak/USA
Narrative Constructs

Pictorialization and Metaphorical Allusion

An exceptionally interesting way of creating compositions is to visualize an idea

embedded in the project’s content as a compositional structure within the space
of page or screen.
___ One possible result may be a narrative pictorialization in which the layout
and its parts are made to “look like” something discussed in the text: For
example, the organization of elements within a space may generate the
impression of objects swept up in a flood; or, perhaps, they may be organized so
as to construct a literal image of a car or other machine. In simplest terms, the
layout becomes a kind of illustration. As content progresses or pursues a
different direction from page to page or screen to screen, the “subject” depicted
by the layout changes, but the governing logic remains the same.
___ Alternatively, the layout structure and visual language used for the forms
that it arranges may allude to some tangential idea, acting as a metaphor that
supports or manipulates perception of its meaning: For instance, a promotion for
a film festival might splice repeated images to refer to the idea of film editing.
___ Both variations on this method follow the idea of visual storytelling, relying
on depictive strategies to deliver narrative meaning that either helps describe or
reframes and augments the content.
Each poster exhibits a different allusive strategy:
———
The faculty exhibition poster at far left configures image and text elements into the form of a
couble helix, a metaphorical reference to the generative aspects of art and education.
———
The poster immediately to the left, which announces an architectural fellowship, builds an image
of type in a multi-level space, accented by cut-out blocks, that pictorializes the site to which it
refers: a stone quarry.
Skolos/Wedell/USA
Cropping fashion models’ figures into narrow vertical strips creates a rapid-fire, rhythmic
presentation that suggests the continuous snap-snap-snap of motor-drive photography and
emphasizes a kind of stomping motion associated with the way models walk during a fashion
show.
The layout also refers to photo-editing; the strips can be interpreted as the edges of selected
shots peeking out from a pile, to be sifted through before making a final cut for publication.
Niessen & deVries/Netherlands
A personal narrative about a near-death incident begins with a straightforward column structure
that is deconstructed in successive studies to evoke the motion of floodwaters and the desperate
nature of the situation.
Le Van Ho/USA
Narrative Allusions

Vernacularism

Another kind of allusive strategy is to appropriate visual language associated

with common, everyday experiences or stylistic gestures associated with
particular contexts—what is called the vernacular.
___ Using vernacular imagery or a vernacular compositional conceit imposes the
look of something else onto a communication, embedding it in this new context,
either to draw a comparison or, possibly, to comment on the subject being
communicated: for example, designing an invitation to an exclusive art auction
using brush lettering and graphic devices typically seen in supermarket
advertising banners. Because the word “vernacular” refers to that which is
ordinary, gestures of this kind often trade on forms associated with low culture,
or undesigned visual experiences. Vernacularism has a relatively long history,
with its source in Pop Art; the iconic sculpture of Brillo brand laundry detergent
boxes by Andy Warhol, as well as paintings of spaghetti and household cleaning
products by James Rosenquist, produced in the 1960s, are prime examples.
This study for a poster about the history of the hamburger configures text into a shape that refers
to an everyday truth about its subject with which most people who grill hamburgers are familiar.
Designer unknown; Timothy Samara/USA, Instructor
Initially aligning this poster’s type along the edges creates the appearance of an internal poster
format; by repeating it ad hoc on top of itself, the designer evokes the vernacular of street
postings, where many layers of posters build up on top of each other over time. This simple
strategy elevates the communication to a sophisticated level where the image becomes signifier
and signified, a poster that shows a posting of posters.
Niklaus Troxler Design/Switzerland
The invitation to a fashion show, above, is designed to mimic a retail shopping receipt—a wry
commentary on issues of high and low commodity culture addressed by the work of the fashion
designer to be shown.
Eri Kuwada/Japan
The poster to the left, celebrating the State of Kansas, appropriates the stylistic language of 1930s
Hatch Show Prints, indicative of American Midwestern culture.
Jessica Berardi/USA

Above right, A newspaper advertisement for a family-owned drug store evokes Victorian
illustrated books—augmented by an incongruous 1960s Op Art pattern—to communicate the
client’s independent, small-business ethos.
Timothy Samara/USA
Chance Operations

Random Physical Effect

The use of chance as an organizing principal might seem counterintuitive. The

unpredictable results, however, can often aid in communication from a
conceptual standpoint by bringing out juxtapositions of material that might
otherwise have escaped notice. Sometimes, introducing chance into the design
process helps one to see the material more clearly, resulting in less predictable,
yet more illuminating, solutions.
___ Conducting a chance operation implies that the chance is being controlled to
a certain degree, and this is usually the case. The nature of that control falls into
two categories: The first involves randomness to a greater degree—based on an
action that prevents explicit control of the outcome. A designer might fling paint
at a surface, knowing that certain kinds of patterns will occur because of the size
of the brush or the specific gesture; in a similar operation, cropped images might
be physically scattered or dropped from a certain height over a format, with an
understanding of what might result. In neither case, however, can the designer
predict or effect a specific result.
___ The resulting outcomes of such operations could be useful in
communicating ideas about motion, the unpredictability of nature, absurdity, and
so on. By selecting the type of chance operation to use, a designer can skew the
results in their favor to some degree, ensuring appropriateness in the form while
allowing the unpredictability to create new visual relationships that structured
thinking about layout won’t achieve.
Shown here is a “list” of possibilities for random-effect chance operations... Randomly dropped
onto this page’s layout. In the background is an image of another such operation: A text sliced
into strips and woven together.
Programmatic Effect

Chance operations that make use of planned procedures, usually of the

mechanical or mathematical variety, fall into a second category. Similar to those
accomplished via random physical action, programmatic operations deny a
designer explicit control over their eventual outcomes; however, the mechanical
nature of such procedures guarantees greater foreknowledge of the results.
___ Programmed chance operations might include such procedures as: dissecting
an image in a pattern of intervals based on an arbitrarily applied grid or a
mathematical formula; automatically photographing or scanning elements, or a
layout in progress, from a particular viewpoint at predetermined times, to insert
as images; augmenting the point sizes of successive lines of type by some
arbitrary multiplier; or printing two layouts on top of one another, then deleting
instances where elements overlap.

A master grid orchestrates the disection of an image across multiple pages of a book. The
decisions about where the disection takes place are made arbitrarily, without regard to the
composition within the image itself. Furthermore, a formula for where to place the dissected
pieces in the page sequence is predetermined but, again, without knowing what the results will be
in advance.
Thomas Ockerse/USA
Considering the Practical in the Impractical
Often, the factor that dissuades a designer from pursuing an unconventional
layout approach is the challenge it’s perceived as posing for viewers, whether
one of aesthetic discomfort or one that is more utilitarian, such as being too
difficult to navigate. Many might argue that the goal of usability necessarily
precludes the varieties of approach described here. But, why deny the
potential of an unusual solution for the reason that it’s not functional... Yet?

Any approach that flies in the face of convention will be fraught with
difficulties. By objectively identifying problematic aspects and working to
address them with a little common sense, even the most challenging solution
may be resolved to achieve a necessary level of practicality—without
necessarily diluting its inventiveness.

This spread from a book of concrete poems mitigates reading-sequence difficulties first by
positioning each poem’s title such that it directs readers to the conventional location for text to
start—upward and to the left. Once the reader enters the text from this familiar starting point,
thoughtful attention to the proximities of sequential words and phrases ensures their ability to
navigate unexpected orientations of text, changes in spacing, and other obstacles.
Warren Lehrer/USA Poems by Dan Bernstein
A multi-plane, cubistic composition of form elements seamlessly integrates columns of relatively
extensive text into its visual language... Yet cleverly leaves the text situated primarily within open
negative space to maintain its distinct identity and its legibility, free of textural interference.
Tenazas Design/USA
Readability, Navigation, and Hierarchy

All of the means of constructing a clear hierarchy in a grid-based layout remain

the same when trying to do so in a layout based on some alternative approach;
there’s no reason why an unsual composition can’t also be a friendly one. The
two aspects of hierarchic control that deserve the most attention—and which
tend, most often, to be the root of viewers’ navigation trouble in unusual
circumstances—are those of optical differentiation and “eye path,” or
compositional flow.
___ Ensuring that a reader can easily identify the most important elements, or
those from which a sequence originates, is critical. Bigger and bolder usually
means “seen first,” so applying such differences to greater extremes than one
normally would is a useful strategy. Repeating partially obscured information in
an open area may help, but it may also confuse a viewer with its redundancy—
better to give it a little extra room where it appears in sequence. When in doubt,
simplify: if the same visual effect can be achieved with fewer elements or less
interference, it will differentiate itself more efficiently from within a complicated
field.
___ Where the first, or most important, form element is located, and how it
optically connects a viewer to elements that follow it, are equally important. For
Western readers, it’s wise to orient top-level elements toward the left-hand area
of a layout. Elements to be encountered next must differentiate from their
contexts to a similar degree (like things attract attention) or be positioned in
proximity to the place where the viewer’s eye is likely to leave the first element
behind. Inserting graphical markers or anchoring points into a layout at strategic
locations will help focus attention and direct the eye’s flow to enhance both of
these hierarchic aspects.
Contrast in relative size (large versus small) and relative spacing (or density and openness)
account for the most effective ways to establish a clear hierarchy. These two contrasts, as
expressions of purely positive/negative interaction, affect our sense of the format being divided
into darker and lighter areas. This effect is enhanced through the use of hue or value change—
altering their chromatic color or simply making some lighter or darker.
When an element in a visual field distinguishes itself from others—as does the vivid red dot above
—it becomes a focal point and, therefore, assumes the greatest level of importance. Although
there are other kinds of contrast evident in the secondary material, the extreme degree to which
the primary element visually disconnects diminishes the effect of these contrasts.
Repetition assigns relative meaning to elements that will be understood as related no matter
where they occur within the visual field—even if separated by material that is clearly different.
Hierarchy, in addition to being strictly about level of importance, is also about relation or
establishing which elements are alike in meaning (whether they are important or not).
Compositional flow, sometimes called “eye path,” occurs as a viewer compares each hierarchic
level’s degree of contrast from the others and senses the difference as a decrease in optical
resistance (another way of thinking about contrast, incidentally). The eye will move from the area
of greatest overall contrast to the least, following a predetermined direction that the designer
can support by positioning axes to help direct or by using graphical forms to point.
The extreme contrast of the single text line at upper left and the paragraph at lower right in this
composition—both reversed from heavy, dark planes and both being the only horizontally
proportioned elements within the field—ensures they’ll differentiate from their surroundings.
From that point, a reader is likely to intuit that the single line—positioned toward the upper left—
indicates where reading should begin.
Designer unknown; Timothy Samara/USA, Instructor
When setting type on a circular path or arc, orient its entry point toward the upper left and, if
possible, so that the first words are relatively horizontal. Compare the readability of the top (left)
configuration to the altered version (right).

Although the black planes that contain reversed type are visually dominant over all else in this
book spread, it’s the hotly colored elements that direct the eye through them to the upper left-
hand corner—by virtue of an invisible, but tremendously powerful, directional axis they help
create as a result of being the only two chromatic elements in the space.
April Greiman/USA
Easing Dissonance, Enhancing Totality

Typographic Strategies

More a matter of finesse than of practicality, the importance of applying macro-

level compositional gestures to micro-scale elements such as text, albeit at a
smaller scale, can not be overstated. Doing so creates greater cohesion among
disparate parts and helps alleviate the potentially fractured or dissonant quality
that often attends alternative compositional approaches. Text of a legible point
size will withstand a degree of manipulation without sacrifice but, if it seems too
challenging, consider treating subheadings and callouts or decks as a bridge
between macro and micro.

This book’s typography benefits from bold graphical inclusions that refer to other, large-scale
forms in different places: they tie the text to those elements stylistically; they help break up the
wall of large-size bold text that floods the pages; and they act as markers that help differentiate
important informational details.
Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation/Germany
Pictorial Strategies

Images—especially crisp, naturalistic ones that are inset in rectangles—often

will disunify from environments of an expressive, gestural, or spatially
ambiguous nature. Manipulating such images to imbue them with visual
characteristics found in surrounding typographic or non-pictorial graphic forms
will better integrate them—again, to downplay potential visual dissonance and
promote a more comforting perception of totality.
These two spreads, from different annual reports, manipulate imagery in different ways to
involve them more cohesively with other compositional gestures in their respective
environments.
Tolleson Design/USA [top] Maksimovic & Partners/Germany [bottom]
Integrating Information Design

Statistical data, financial tables, and similar info-graphic material will typically
be at odds, visually speaking, with non-grid-based compositional approaches.
The looser, more organic, and gestural the layout is, the less these architectural
and geometric elements will fit in... Unless they’re made to do so.
___ It’s important to be aware that many kinds of statistical data can be
visualized in different forms, using different chart conventions. The first thing a
designer will want to do is to determine whether the data he or she is required to
present can take a form other than that in which it was provided. If so, the task
becomes a matter of choosing the data shape whose formal qualities most closely
reflect those of the overall layout and recasting the data to fit. If not, the existing
data structure might be alterable enough to create adequate formal dialogue with
other elements. As a last resort, a designer might simply rotate a graph or table
slightly, or position it over a more organic form, to diminish the presence of its
corners and orthogonal axes—without compromising the data’s integrity, of
course.
The delicate and detailed typographic treatments of this annual report for a German bank, some
of which are deconstructions of printing details from money, stocks, and other financial
documents, interact playfully with rigid columns and, interestingly, with the financial tables—not
so much as invading them, but marking separations between tables and sections of numeric data
within them.
Maksimovic & Partners/Germany
Elements from the upper part of this calendar page cascade downward, progressively diminishing
in overall activity, size and weight, and transitioning from planar to linear as they come to
interact seamlessly with the calendar grid at the bottom. Within the grid, informational text
elements are treated to reflect shapes and tonal qualities visible in the upper area as well.
Mayer+Myers Design/USA
The table of contents in the book above, about the history of avant-garde filmmaking,
deconstructs a modular structure to create an impression of film frames moving through a
projector.
Designer unknown; Timothy Samara/USA, Instructor
Although a conventional taxonomic tree diagram is presented as an orthogonal, vertical, or
horizontal formation, here one has been altered to follow a concentric, circular structure that
integrates it with its amorphous, organic image environment. The legend at bottom is set within a
dot to support the circular motif.
Timothy Samara/USA
Systematizing the Organic

Most design projects are systems involving serial or sequential components that
require visual rules for consistency, but permit needed variation. Even though
grid-based thinking encourages extensive variation, its rigorous logic tends to
engender systems that are characteristically consistent and programmatic;
expressing variation is more difficult. Most alternative layout approaches,
conversely, grow from formal irregularity. The visual freedom inherent in their
makeup is a double-edged sword when it comes to defining a system.
Theoretically, alternative organizational approaches free the designer from
conventional rule-making, but a system of this ilk must still exhibit some
consistency, and it must be maintained without compromising the project’s
unconventional energy.
___ The trick is to be able to analyze, as specifically as possible, what the most
prevalent formal conditions are among all those that might be present. Asking
simple questions of oneself is a great way to begin the evaluation process: “What
kind of images am I using?” “Is geometry important in the shapes or
relationship?” “Is there spatial depth, and, if so, what creates it—transparency,
scale change, overlap?” “Do I sense movement, and, if so, is it lateral, vertical,
frenzied, calm, and repeated?” The answers to these questions are the system’s
rules. Each rule may be reinterpreted in different instances, based on the
variables inherent within it, and to different extremes. For instance, if the fact of
images cropped into an irregular trapezoid is a rule, one might decide that all the
trapezoids are the same size and shape; or that they may vary in size; or that the
measures of their sides may also change; or that the cropping shape isn’t only to
be trapezoids, but also parallelograms and triangles.
It’s worth noting that the more rules, the greater the number of variables for
each, and the more extreme the expression of each variable, the greater the
potential for the system to fall apart. Limit the rules to two or three, total, as well
as the numbers, kinds, and degrees of, their variations: The result will be a more
easily controllable, and unified, system. Further, the rules and their individual
variations must be applied consistently among the respective parts to which they
correspond. Where discrepancies arise—either out of need or desire—consider
these as incentive to reinvestigate rules to see what changes need to be
implemented. The discrepancy may be edited out or, perhaps, it may give rise to
a new rule that must be resolved among existing elements.
The rules that establish consistency among these book covers are relatively simple because there
are so few elements to control in each—but they are very specific: Three kinds of image; the use of
black and one middle-value cool color; one of the image components is colored; the use of one
type family and a consistent style for each level in the hierarchy; the title is set as a staggered
group of lines.
Eri Kuwada/Japan
These pages from an art school’s course catalogue, although far more complex and detailed than
the book covers on the opposite page, are nonetheless governed by the same number of rules,
and very similar ones.
———

Compare the two projects and try to determine not only what the rules for this system are, but
which ones they share with that of the cover series—and which are different.
Stoltze Design/USA
Systematizing the Organic

If a particular variation repeats inconsistently among the components of a system, the

discrepancy will cause those layouts that share a similar variation to disunify.
———
The number of component parts that make up a system is one factor to consider in how such a
discrepancy might be resolved.
———
In this poster series, the main titling element rotates to a different angle in each poster. This
variation is controlled specifically with regard to the fact that there are four posters: two of the
titles are oriented orthogonally, and two are oriented diagonally. The system has a binary
variation. If the diagonally rotated titles were oriented at the same angle, this logic would conflict
with that of the other two, in which the angle is different in each.
Atelier Poisson/Switzerland

Each spread in this recruiting brochure for a private school exhibits one Western achievement
paired with a conceptually similar stage of student development: for example, space exploration
becomes a metaphor for senior-level students who will explore new frontiers upon graduating.
The event is catalogued in a bar of descriptive text running vertically along the left edge of the
format.
———
Two kinds of text content—a description of grade level ethos and a quotation by a student—are
each given their own column width and typographic style, but are fluidly repositioned from
spread to spread in conjunction with their accompanying images. Alignments overlap; texts are
layered and cross the gutter. The spread ‘title’ always runs across the center as a focal point,
binding the elements together.
———
A strictly informational student life section plays off these treatments but organically rearranges
the rectilinear elements—captions, quoted statements, inset pictures—based on their formal
qualities alone.
Timothy Samara/USA
Interaction Design Without Grids

Despite the presumption that designers could technically be freed by interactive

media from grid-based editorial structure—given that page matter need not
remain statically displayed throughout viewing, as it does with print—it’s
remarkable how ubiquitous grid use has become in online publishing. Although
a grid readily addresses the requirements of responsive design and aids in rapidly
templating multitudes of pages, there’s no good reason why these requirements
can’t be equally well addressed through an alternative logic. Screen-based
interactivity—and all it encompasses, from scrolling to animation to flyout
navigation to parallaxing—seems ready-made for alternative layout approaches.
It’s a wonder that more designers don’t exploit the medium for its potential in
this regard.
___ The limited area of the smartphone screen that presents a benefit for the
process of grid construction here may be a hindrance: Unusual layouts and
navigation functionality typically require large areas. One question designers
might do well to ask is: Simply because one can design for device
responsiveness, should one always? Is it important that viewers be able to access
every kind of online content on their phones?
There really are no considerations or best practices for screen-based design from
an alternative standpoint that diverge from those that exist for conventional
approaches: Content is of primary importance; navigation must be clearly
different from content; text must be legible; users must be able to intuit
functionality and page flow, and be able to trace the sequence of pages or
screens they’ve accessed; they must be able to get from one screen to another,
anywhere in the site; the site must load quickly; and it must be a beautiful,
compelling experience worthy of their time.
This experimental design for the U.S. space agency NASA presents users with navigation in a
constellational structure reminiscent of technical diagrams. It serves dual purposes, being a
functional, interactive tool and an abstract image.
Images in this sequence: Luiza Dale/USA
Upon navigating, the main menu shrinks to a reduced size and slides downward to a discreet
location while selected page content loads from screen-right. A large arrow indicates scroll
direction. Continued scrolling slides already-viewed content under the navigation’s linear
element.
Mousing over the navigation expands its size and releases flyout submenus; the current page’s
content scrolls upward to provide room, but will return to its previous position should the user
mouse off the menu.
Images, cropped into circular windows, can exist in tandem with text content or expand from
links within text.
This screen design for a jazz orchestra evolves a vertical, linear structure for navigation from the
client’s wordmark. Mouseovers expand content elements in size to cover content and navigation
that is no longer under consideration at the moment. Narrow slices expand to a fuller, horizontal
format upon selection.
Azusa Takahashi/USA
Interaction Design Without Grids

This site for an architecture firm, in contrast to those shown on the previous spread, is a real-
world interactive design that doesn’t use a grid. Colored navigational fields create an
architectural mosaic upon landing; mousing over each reveals an image of a particular project,
which acts as a link to that project’s in-depth information page. Global navigation links reside in a
narrow band above the main mosaic. As the browser area reduces in size, the site responds by
reordering both the navigation and mosaic blocks to scroll vertically—appearing at the same size
they do in the desktop format.
Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation/Germany
Kids Art, Inc. helps students raise money for shcool programs by selling stationery made with
their own artwork. Their site presents material in a dimensional, scrapbook-like array, with each
card or paper element functioning as a navigation link. Sticky notes, along with hand-drawn icons
and details, combine with patterns and photographic textures for a playful, yet elegant,
experience.
Timothy Samara/USA
Typical of most sites, the various elements reorient to a stacked, scrolling configuration when the
browser resizes to that of a smartphone screen.
———
To maintain a similar compositional feel as the full-size version in this limited space—but without
becoming cluttered—primary content and navigation situate toward the center of the screen,
while the card elements move mostly off-screen; their corners remain in view at the edges and are
pinned so they remain continually accessible as the page scrolls.
———
Should a user select a card element to view its content or navigate elsewhere, the card moves to
dominate the screen until it’s no longer needed.
Pacing and Sequencing

The visual cadence in projects of a sequential nature, like books or walls in an

exhibit, can be envisioned in a conventionally editorial way—using specific
kinds of layouts to distinguish major divisions from contiguous content.
Unconventional layout strategies tend to be more experiential than expository,
however, and often lend themselves to other ways of thinking about sequence
and pace.
___ Visual elements may relate to each other in time, as though in frames of a
film. Images might move across a format or be otherwise changed from page to
page, affecting other images or text that appear later. This kind of kinetic
structure comes to be recognized and understood as the viewer experiences the
succession of frames. Using sensory experiences of space and time as organizing
principles can be a powerful tool for evoking a visceral, emotional response
from viewers.
___ As with more prosaic projects, decisions about the ebb and flow of material
often will be driven by the content’s requirements for sequential clarity. But, a
designer might very well consider the sequence and pace as an idea unto itself
that helps establish how the content ought to be delivered.
The material in these page spreads from a book about the history of World War II is paced by a
physical hole in its center that grows in size throughout the book’s sequence—a metaphor for a
bullet’s destructive effect. As the hole’s size increases (shown as red dots), it pierces images and
text to affect the interpretation of their meaning. Secondary pacing strategies focus on
relationships of content volume, page position, and light/dark value.
Hayoung Shin/USA

The organization of this book, both verbally and visually, is filmic in nature: each spread is a
frame that refers to the one preceding it and sets up the next.

The relationships between images and typography are intuitive responses to a quantity of text,
The relationships between images and typography are intuitive responses to a quantity of text,
the predominant shapes in the background image, and how these meld to form a cohesive
composition.

Spreads are set up as sequences of interconnected visual ideas. The negative space in an image on
a given spread may yield to a similarly shaped positive image on the next; an inset or background
image in the spread following that may be enlarged to a full-bleed image that crosses over onto a
subsequent spread. Continuity is created through rhythmic, spatial interconnection between
pages.
April Greiman/USA
Exhibits
Each exhibit is supported with a label and diagram that describe its structure,
followed by credits, a general overview, and a list of related exhibits for
comparison—from left to right, across the top of the page.
———
The exhibit comparisons from both sections are numbered and color coded
for easy reference.

01
Spontaneous Optical Composition / Organic

In this poster for an exhibition of her work, the designer draws upon her own
writing—contemplations of the nature of visual space in graphical
communication—as the basis for generating an abstract, multi-dimensional
experience.
___ The imagery is entirely non-pictorial, but derived from manipulations of
photographic source material. The designer’s choices with regard to texturizing,
applying color to create impressions of light playing on volumes, transparency,
and the confrontation of geometric and organic forms result in the suggestion of
biomorphic, architectural, and cosmological objects—all interacting kinetically
in spaces that appear to change depth from location to location.
___ Material is organized in a painterly, intuitive way to balance a variety of
formal contrasts: soft against hard, angular against amorphous, volumetric
against flat, planar against linear; figure and ground appear to change place.
Every element acts in concert with the others around it, producing an overall
cohesion, but leaving the viewer free to explore the visual and verbal material as
he or she sees fit.
___ Type acts as image within its surrounding ambiguous spatial environment.
The designer introduces contrasts within individual type elements (changes in
size, weight, and spacing; baseline shifts; and color differences) to translate the
formal gestures of the macro-scale imagery into the typography, ensuring the
two kinds of visual language are cohesively integrated.
___ The visual field envelops the viewer to privilege the optical experience over
informational hierarchy; the viewer may discover and interact with verbal matter
at leisure.
DESIGN

April Greiman
Los Angeles, CA | USA
Exhibition poster for the Los Angeles chapter of the American Institute of Graphic Arts [AIGA]
02
Nested, Relative-Scale Diagram Mapping
By communicating extremely complex information in an intuitive way, this
dynamically spatial interface for a computer-generated map of the human
genome organizes information in virtual space based on the natural shapes of the
biological material. Instead of imposing a modular structure to contain the
information, the designer uses the existing genetic architecture as the
information structure. Viewers are able to move into, through, and around the
components of genetic material.
___ From an exterior specimen view of the chromosomes, laid out into rows, the
user can intuitively point to the chromosome they’d like to explore, and in doing
so, fly into it for closer inspection. Within this enlarged view, the user can
choose from additional components that have become visible. Their position is
relative to the superstructure, of which they are a part. Diagrammatic
information and text are positioned in relation to the structures they describe.
___ At the upper left of the screen, a navigational box shows relative position
within the structure’s scale and highlights information relevant to that location.
DESIGN

Small Design Firm

Cambridge, MA | USA
Interactive exhibition interface for the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry
03
Spontaneous Composition / Narrative Allusion
The formal decisions made for the front and back of this poster visualize the
philosophical approach of the firm that it promotes—the contextual relationship
of simplicity and complexity, austerity and irrational messiness.
___ Forms that are clearly architectural elements are removed from their original
contexts, brutally chopped, and filled with color to flatten them into sharp,
abstract planes; their stark clarity is regularly interrupted by patterned elements,
supporting planes, and typography to create layers of material that jump between
foreground and background. The spatial confusion and complicated interferences
of shape and text overlaps, however, are underpinned by a rigorously controlled
network of geometric axes—the edges of every element line up with or point to
those of other elements, junctures between them (or between elements and the
edges of the format). On the front side (right), for instance, the white slash
following the word BOTH describes a diagonal axis connecting the initial R of
the firm’s name to the top of the vertical gray line in the image—and then on to
the point along the poster’s top edge where the axis of the word architecture, at
the poster’s foot, strikes it.
___ Interestingly, the slash crosses a strong visual boundary, joining the space
above and below. This gesture, like the tensions established throughout, captures
a sense of duality: The slash takes on the meaning of the words it separates.
DESIGN

Tenazas Design
Beacon, NY | USA
Promotional poster for an architectural practice
04
Spontaneous Composition Geometric Narrative Allusion
The Lyceum Organization sponsors a design competition for architecture
students; the winners receive a stipend for travel to enhance their studies. Each
year, the competition proposes a particular problem to be solved. The 2016
competition was inspired by the hypothetical proposal that Boston be the host
city for the 2024 Summer Olympic Games. Given that the International Olympic
organization jealously guards its brand, no references to the five rings appear.
Nor, for that matter, do any athletes or literal architectural depictions.
___ On the other hand, the formal vocabulary in the poster is entirely
architectural—based on a photograph of lucite planes and frames and their cast
shadows, suggesting a building model—while the tumbling arrangement of
typography and supporting graphical forms imparts a kinetic athleticism; one
senses runners jumping hurdles, gymnasts on uneven bars, javelins flying.
___ The designers pay close attention to the relative parallel or divergent nature
of axes and their junctures, distributing them along a limited selection of planar
levels and directions to ensure well-crafted, rhythmic cohesion instead of chaotic
randomness.
The 2017 competition focuses on a small branch library in one of New York
City’s transitional neighborhoods. The project guidelines noted that entrants
must negotiate between two levels of public access—a communal, street level
one and an “ennobled” space, a terrace separated from the surrounding
neighborhood.
___ Photographs of books assume an architectural solidity through scale and
lighting, moving through a complicated space to cross a digitally imposed
boundary. Elements seem to cross this divide, or to be separated by it, at
different locations; diagonal and vertical axes repeat in continual counterpoint;
and a pattern of letters (also expressing orthogonal and diagonal orientations)
appears to move across the surface or to be part of the dimensional space. All
these attributes signify unification of the two aforementioned spaces.
___ A large, frame-like form highlights the poster’s spatial division, while
narrow red planes, together with selected type forms, work to visually cross it.
The frame suggests the walls of a building in plan; the red planes evoke an
interpretation of bookmarks.
DESIGN
Skolos/Wedell
Canton, MA | USA
Posters announcing an annual student architectural design competition
05
Grid Deconstruction Modular Physical
This project makes explicit the theme of the lecture series it announces. First, it
interprets the material in two forms—as a poster, and as a booklet, created when
the poster is cut down (each is a distinct structural language). This physical
deconstruction of the poster’s modular grid results in a new layout system: full-
bleed texture and symbolic title on the left, informational caption enclosed in a
corresponding square on the right. It retains some modularity, but alignments
become compromised and images appear to slide from one page to another—
creating opportunities for viewers to reinterpret the juxtapositions between
symbolic key words, lecture titles, and images.
DESIGN

Simon Johnston
Los Angeles, CA | USA
Poster/brochure for a lecture series at the Getty Research Institute
06
Grid Deconstruction Manuscript Splicing, Deformation
The deconstruction of a manuscript grid gives a quiet yet wry context for a book
exhibiting the work of radical graphic designers. Ample margins, larger outside
than at top, set the text block low on the page. The blocks mirror each other
across the gutter.
___ The proportions seem at first to be the only unconventional aspect of the
classical structure; however, structural details in the typography reveal there’s
more to it. Images intrude into the main text block as needed, carving out large
blocks of the column. This same deleting of a portion of the column provides
space for captions accompanying the exhibited work. In some instances, the
captions practically butt the alignment of the primary text block, creating
extreme tension and an uncertainty in space.
___ Irregular negative shapes that are independent of image—elipses and
diagonals—sometimes cut into the primary text block, reinforced by similarly
shaped captions or callouts. Conflicting alignment relationships, in which a
justified column is greeted by a caption set flush-right (or more jarring, a caption
that is also justified and shifted off baseline by a few points) add an edgy,
transgressive elegance that helps break up the vast field of text.
___ The triangular terminus of the column at the page foot is an archaic book
design gesture from the 16th century. This detail highlights the subversive nature
of this book’s design: celebrating the visual avant-garde with an exceptionally
traditional typographic style and calling into question what, really, is so radical
about any of it?
DESIGN

McCoy & McCoy

Buena Vista, CO | USA
Casebound book on graphic design for Chronicle Books
07
Grid Deconstruction Column Splicing
This catalog for an exhibition of British art, fashion, architecture, and industrial
design uses overlapping columns as its base structure for text and image
arrangement, creating a curtain of shifting planes that moves forward and back
depending on the color and density of the texts and images. Images of the
exhibits are allowed to expand or contract between the column alignments that
occur in each given spread.
___ Vertical rules are used to increase the tension of particular text alignments,
bringing them forward and distinguishing them from others that recede in space.
Using this method, unrelated texts are able to run concurrently or even butt up
against each other without confusing the reader.
___ Transparency and shadow resulting from overlaid tints and changes in the
density of the typography increase the sense of depth and movement. No two
intervals between alignments are the same, so the page structure is one of
continuous movement, a metaphor for the British design scene’s constant
innovation.
DESIGN

Why Not Associates

London, England | UK
Exhibition catalogue for the British government’s Department of Trade and Industry
08
Narrative Allusion Spontaneous Composition Vernacularism
This magazine is an arts review, devoting each issue entirely to discussion of one
artist, designer, or other creative individual. This particular issue focuses on the
radical Dutch graphic design group Metahaven, known for their use of visual
detritus, naive drop-shadow effects, garish colors, and for posing such questions
as “Could the leftovers of graphic design be turned into jokes? Might—through
this re-allegiance—design rediscover actual societal impact?”
___ The designers of this issue (somewhat radical themselves) drew upon their
subject’s sources of inspiration—vernacular tropes such as stickers, lottery
cards, product-promotion starburst violaters, playing cards—in which to carry
the dialogue of an interview they conducted with Metahaven about their
decision-making processes.
___ The selection of particular shapes for particular quotes is random and mostly
formal, but they are organized so that each one, which contains a sequential part
of the interview, overlaps the subsequent one in the correct order. This strategy
keeps the intervew’s flow clear, but also results in a crazy quilt of interlocking
shapes.
___ In reference to Metahaven’s penchant for gradients, the magazine’s
designers employed split-fountain printing, in which each plate’s ink fountain
contains two or more ink colors that mix together. Each speaker was assigned a
particular printing plate; because the split fountain spans several signatures, the
color identities of the speakers change, but one can see who is contributing to
particular segments of the conversation at different times nonetheless.
DESIGN

Niessen & deVries

Amsterdam | Netherlands
Issue of curated arts magazine, 1:1:1
09
Chance Operation / Programmatic
This book of seemingly random three-dimensional spaces, texts, and images is
built on a master grid that helps contribute to its intuitive organic quality. This
project was completed for an exhibit entitled “Universal/Unique.” The exhibit’s
focus was on the relationship between structure and freedom in design, and
participating exhibitors were asked to submit work using predetermined kernel
elements: a grid, the word “word,” and the image of an eye.
___ The designer set up a modular grid within a square format using the
horizontal, vertical, and isometric (45°) axes, and then systematized how each of
the kernel elements, plus excerpts from essays and photographs of the actual
design process, would interact with the grid. The square formats together form
the layout of a book on a press sheet, and cutting the sheet into book signatures
enforces, and yet also denies, properties of the grid. The master “eye” grid, for
example, shows its triangular dissection, based on the master grid, which
destroys its recognizability but directs the segments’ placement from page to
page. The excerpted texts, which on one side of the sheet all refer to the idea of
universality, come into juxtaposition with the opposing concept, uniqueness,
when the pages are cut and folded together.
___ The grid forces the deconstruction because its structure is created before
assessing the material it governs: The material ends up doing whatever it will as
it is made to conform to its predetermined criteria. The result is a collage of
texture, shadow, light, and type that, upon closer inspection, reveals its hidden
order.
DESIGN

Thomas Ockerse
Providence, RI | USA
Book created as a commissioned exhibition work
10
Spontaneous Optical Composition Centered Axis Vernacularism
Aside from a consistently applied, centered, brand-information configuration,
there is no system involved in this series of seasonal ads for a small, family-
owned pharmacy. With the goal of emphasizing the client’s individuality and
small-business ethos, the designer uses a combination of charming, historical
clip-art, vector graphic special-effects, patterns, and icons to create individual,
poster-like illustrations meant to intrigue and surprise. Decisions about sizes,
weights, shapes, stylistic details, and color are entirely intuitive, responding to
the formal qualities of the elements as they are appreciated in context.
DESIGN

Timothy Samara
New York, NY | USA
Seasonal advertising for a family-owned pharmacy
11
Spontaneous Optical Composition
This online, tablet-format magazine about culture, politics, and entertainment
takes an irreverent tone in its visual language, reflecting its mix of news,
punditry, and satire. Although text typography is elegantly crafted and
organized, and there are simple, one-column templates for text, for the most part
every page or multi-page article is a free-for-all. The designer develops specific
illustrations, graphic details, and typographic arranegements for each as seems
most appropriate to express the content in any given case. All the elements
respond to each other, contrasting or not, depending on what they are. It’s a
more editorial, old-school way of thinking about publication design that’s not so
formatted and corporate in appearance.
___ The one consistent aspect is the presence of hand drawing, whether as type,
diagrams, decorative ornamentation, or illustrative imagery—whether in
combination with photography, icons, or widget-like interactive elements.
DESIGN

Laurent Pinabel
Montréal, Qué. | Canada
Tablet-format, online periodical design for Bazzo Magazine
12
Narrative Allusion / Spontaneous Optical Composition
In the deceptively simple poster for an exhibition of posters on the theme
“improvisation,” the designer uses two spatial levels—one for the exhibit title, in
red, one for the event information, in black—as a way to add additional control
to a carefully randomized layout of letterforms.
___ No baselines, alignments, or margins here: The letters float freely as though
scattered across the poster’s format. Careful consideration has been given to the
precise placement of the forms, however, so that although their rhythm is made
more random in feeling, their legibility isn’t impaired—despite the overlap of
red and black letterforms that are close in optical color.
DESIGN

Niklaus Troxler Design

Willisau | Switzerland
Poster for an exhibition of posters at the Willisau Rathaus in Switzerland
13
Spontaneous Optical Composition / Geometric
This invitation for an event celebrating a renovated university building uses a
montage of the building’s architecture as a main compositional influence.
___ Intersecting translucent planes overlay similarly luminous architectural
elements in a shifting temporal space that sometimes appears to converge on a
single vanishing point but then... doesn’t, leaving the viewer to ponder the
ambiguity.
___ The type is subservient to the formal dynamism of the pictorial elements’
angular construction and their organization on the page; it takes some cues from
the architecture (most notably on the cover) but remains spare, condensing in a
scale progression from triangular and rectilinear planes (A, N, E, W, and the
word groups they make up) to a single line that travels succinctly across the
interior.
DESIGN

Paone Design Associates

Philadelphia, PA | USA
Invitation to an event at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education
14
Grid Deconstruction Splicing Narrative Allusion
This book documents three related films about the subject of time, which are
simultaneously exhibited in a closed environment.
___ Each film is concerned with a different aspect of time: past, present, or
future. The book’s long, narrow, horizontal format acts as a metaphor for the
linear representation of time, much the way a storyboard or score for a film
would. Increments in time, as indicated by the frame count of each film
displayed in linear sequence on the page, are the organizing principle.
In the exhibition, each film begins and ends in some relation to the other two; in
the book, the running text of the essay, as well as the frame sequences of the
films, begin in the same relationship: staggered in relationship to each other and
staggered in terms of duration and interval. Columns of text follow the frame
counts and timing of significant film events that overlap each other and move in
synchrony.
___ The time increments, film events, and frame counts are marked as
informational elements, but also form a visual overlay of staggered black rules to
give movement and rhythm to the sequence across the panels.
DESIGN

Jennifer Bernstein
New York, NY | USA
Film exhibition document, part of an MFA thesis
15
Multiple / Radial, Framed, Networked, Spontaneous
This project responded to the question “How do we come together in order to
touch, or be touched by, the intelligence we need?” The challenge: To give form
to something formless that is an intimate part of being, and of being related. The
design team’s response was to make the user an active part of the experience
through interaction with a dynamic map. Most interfaces are linear in design
because their goal is to disseminate information to the user in a convenient
manner. The team intuited that content of an experiential nature rendered such
linearity less useful.
___ The design is a non-hierarchical structure of conceptual “cells,” each an
organized principle and interlinked sub-particle that fosters a perceptual
engagement with words and images in a kind of fluctuating haiku, a gentle co-
motion in time and space. This holistic “hub” conception applies to the entire
interface language. Interaction is with objects in constant flux.
___ In concrete terms, users encounter the hub and select links to explore; as
they do so, shapes and word particles coalesce to form content, which can act as
further links—bringing out new shapes, images, and text links—or redirect the
user to the hub for additional connections. Links are programmed to randomize
the parts along with a few controls so the viewer discovers new and unexpected
relationships. That dynamism empowers the participant with possibilities and co-
creation. In paying attention, there is the possibility of surprise, which stimulates
spontaneity and play. Every experience therefore enables fresh insights.
___ As the project director describes it: “The true depth of what the map has to
offer lies in the poetic grace of the experience itself, of being in the moment as
an active participant and co-creator, and not in the world of expectation and ...
consumption.”
OVERVIEW

An interactive interface built as a dynamic map of consciousness for a group called The Collective
Wisdom Initiative

DESIGN

Design Director—Thomas Ockerse [Program Head, Graduate Studies in Graphic Design, RISD]
Providence, RI | USA
Designers—Danniel Gaidula, Stephanie Grey, Soe Lin Post [graduate students in Graphic Design,
RISD]
Digital Programmer—Danniel Gaidula
Design Assistant—Ho Eun Ahn [graduate student in Graphic Design, RISD]
Thinking Partner—Anne West [Adjunct Faculty, Graduate Studies, RISD]
In concert with—Sheryl Erickson [Project Director for the Fetzer Institute Collective Wisdom
Initiative
16
Grid Deconstruction / Manuscript, Column / Reversal
To begin, a disclaimer: Technically, there is a grid of sorts in use here. It’s
included in this section because the grid is inconsequential—the relationship
between body and margins is almost default in proportion, and the two-page
structures (manuscript, two-column) don’t relate to each other. What is
important, however, is its bold, irreverent deconstruction of editorial
conventions.
___ Text runs top to bottom, as expected, but also from bottom to top.
Sometimes, it’s even set backward—as though it exists on a transparent plane of
glass, and one is reading it from behind. The pages appear to be randomly
numbered; in actuality, the pages have been moved from their contiguous
sequences to new locations, carrying their page numbers with them.
___ Within the text, the designers exaggerate notational conventions like in-line
citations and cross-references with underlines and dark blocks; these callouts do
actually function as links between parts of text, or between one essay and
another; as well as between the text of this book and the works it references. The
visual effect is almost interactive, like early Web navigation links.
___ When images appear, they are purposely disconnected from the text layout.
Most often, they bleed a full page on a spread, but on occasion appear as small
insets; in either case, they are rotated 90°. Captions for them extend from foot
margin to head margin, running in the gutter.
DESIGN

Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation

Stuttgart | Germany
Catalogue and essays for a fine arts exhibition
17
Grid Deconstruction / Deformation / Spontaneous Composition
The identity and print materials for a dance company in New York follow no
grid ... nor are there any horizontal or strictly vertical elements at all. The system
is completely spontaneous, operating off the expression that begins in the logo.
Its letters, liberated from the flat, static confines of two-dimensional space, fly
against each other like the dancers in the company’s performances.
___ No typography in the system is standardized in terms of placement or size,
although the same type family unites all of the materials. The invitation to an
opening night gala incorporates photography of dancers collaged with three-
dimensional typography that tilts forward and back in space. The random width
of the “columns” of type interact with the figures around them in a rhythmic
movement across the panels.
DESIGN

Pettis Design
Clinton, CT | USA
Visual identity materials for a contemporary dance company
18
Grid Deconstruction Splicing Spontaneous Composition
This course catalog relies on multiple structural ideas to convey the
experimental, exploratory, and often antiestablishment environment of an art
school. The overlap of images, type, and integration of several different
alignment structures serves as a metaphor for the interaction of different artistic
disciplines, as well as divorcing the institution from its counterparts: nonarts
educational universities.
___ The first few spreads are seductively simple. Misalignments in the columns
of the table of contents and the mission statement, while unorthodox, only hint at
the upcoming dynamics. Beginning with the descriptive section about the
surrounding city, each section takes on its own organizational qualities.
Sometimes a few center-axis columns hang from the top of the page, sometimes
there are no columns. Course information begins in a four-column structure but
quickly dissolves into clusters of staggered lines, ignoring hanglines and, in
some cases, running horizontally across the gutter of the spread.
___ Photographs and artwork are arranged as both foreground and background
elements. Sometimes they are presented in black and white, as journalistic
evidence; at others, they appear as color-tinted planes floating behind running
text. No consistent alignments, but the pages hold together in a clean, direct sort
of tension where the visual qualities of the images and shapes are played against
each other.
DESIGN

Stoltze Design
Boston, MA | USA
Course catalogue for MCA [Massachusetts College of Art]
19
Grid Deconstruction Splicing Spontaneous Composition
Clean geometric abstraction—semicircles, arcs, lines, and dots—and a fresh,
unstudied approach to the composition of elements govern the layout of
information for this brochure. Dramatic negative spaces surround and interact
with clustered forms and freely composed units of typographic information in a
“dance” around the format.
___ The information is accessible, despite its playful structure, because each part
of the information is decisively located. Individual thoughts or components of
information are separated from each other so the eye can access them easily.
___ Dynamic variation in the scale, shape, and proximity of elements creates a
natural movement across the spreads, keeping the reader interested and helping
to link successive paragraphs or ideas in an intuitive and easy-to-follow manner.
This organizational method can be very successful when the informational
requirements of the project are not too demanding.
DESIGN

Stoltze Design
Boston, MA | USA
Course catalogue for UMASS Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts
20
Grid Deconstruction / Deformation / Narrative Allusion
Organized around the principle of collage, this inventive design journal walks a
middle ground between apparent chaos and order.
___ Careful study of cut-paper shapes and their overlaps led to the development
of a system for shaping paragraphs and columns of text by deforming their text
boxes and, subsequently, for laying them out to ensure readers can navigate
without trouble.
___ A comprehensive design manual provides guidelines for creating the shapes
of the text boxes. Reading order depends on a number of variables: the relative
positions of each collage shape, the size and orientation of the text within those
shapes, and the density of the text on the page. By varying these parameters, the
designer is able to control flow through the paragraphs when needed.
___ For the most part, the entry point is located more or less toward the upper
left of a page or spread, where readers expect it; but if it isn’t, it will be found
near the location of the most intense optical contrast (in weight or size). From
that point, with occasional deviation, reading occurs from top to bottom and left
to right. Strong contrasts in style between columns help the reader keep them
separate; equally decisive overlaps help direct the eye from one paragraph to
another.
___ The system allows for a great deal of control and tremendous opportunity
for discovering new organizational methods for text and image.
DESIGN

Andrea Vazquez Thomas Ockerse, Instructor

Providence, RI | USA
Editorial system for design journal Cut and Paste; student project
21
Grid Deconstruction Splicing Spontaneous Divisions
Four galleries of photographic reproduction form the primary focus of this
printer’s showpiece. Each gallery section is devoted to the work of a single
photographer and designed around a given theme. Structurally, alignment is
minimal, and any alignment that exists is violated in every other spread. Each
gallery section relies on its own logic to determine whether the alignments are
articulated, but most often the operating logic is optical.
___ On divider pages, complementary texts alternate between contrasting
treatments based on the designer’s sensitivity to the qualities of the type in the
format. The actual positioning of texts changes, but the same logic applies to
each occurrence. Centralized insets play off full-spread bleeds. The structure of
individual pages is wrapped up in contrasts of sequencing, scale and color
change, cropping and bleed, and surface treatment (matte and reflective).
DESIGN

Ideas on Purpose
New York, NY | USA
Promotional brochure for a commercial printer
22
Spontaneous Composition / Geometric
Intersecting diagonals and sharp angular movements, derived from the
juxtaposition of photographic and typographic line elements, create a dynamic
organization for the imagery and information in this poster. The designer uses
the vertical diagonal of the crane arm and the sudden angle of the overhead street
lamp to both disorient the viewer and provide a primary superstructure for the
poster. The typography moves upward and outward, with positions for each line
determined in part by the superstructure.
___ At the same time, the designer counters the tumult with subtle alignments
and focal points: The airplane at lower left anchors the composition and creates
an optical alignment between lines of information that echo the direction of the
superstructure.
DESIGN

Frost*collective
Sydney | Australia
Poster promoting the London International Festival of Theatre
23
Dynamic List Sequence / Column Deconstruction
In contrast to most architects’ websites—which typically involve ordered grids
—this one presents navigation and content as an undifferentiated list that flows
from top of page to bottom. The list is set in a custom typeface—based on a
redrawing of a clean sans serif font by hand. The continuity of the list is
interrupted by stark yellow highlights, notations of awards for projects or their
appearance in publication, and images of the projects themselves. The images
act as links to individual pages that describe the projects in-depth. On the
landing page, all the images associated with a project appear, in order of their
arrangement on the project page.
___ The project pages follow a different logic, but one similar to the
undifferentiated list of the landing page: The pages scroll horizontally, and
present text and images as a contiguous sequence, without concern for how they
relate to the browser’s edges. In a small format, for instance, as on a smartphone,
the text initially appears to bleed off the right edge of the screen. Project images
are all the same height, but cropped in random widths.
DESIGN

Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation

Stuttgart | Germany
Website for architectural and urban planning firm
24
Narrative Allusion / Physical Deformation
Text in this annual report for a real estate developer is completely subordinate to
imagery... and the imagery is subordinate to a dimensional cutout that
encompasses the depth of the book, affecting all pages before those of the
financial section.
___ The cutout creates a stairway, a metaphor for growth and empowerment that
forms the report’s governing theme, and that is expressed in numerous ways
through a variety of illustrations. Doggedly pursuing a single idea throughout a
publication can be daunting—continually refreshing it both visually and verbally
so that it’s always relevant to the discussion requires a strong commitment—
never mind having to confront an unavoidable compositional dilemma on every
page: the cutout. It limits the area that can accept printing, and it imposes a
specific formal condition that must be integrated.
___ The designers meet this challenge admirably, incorporating the visible area
encompassed by the cutout as a dark-or light-value plane into the illustrations.
Often, the illustrative material uses the cutout very directly; sometimes it ignores
it; but even when it does, the designers ensure it does so with careful respect for
alignments. By altering the scale, value, color distribution, and shaping of each
illustration from spread to spread, the designers also ensure the experience is
anything but monotonous.
___ The typography, as noted, is secondary to all else—set in an elegant serif,
printed in a deep gray ink, and distributed among two columns to get out of the
imagery’s way.
DESIGN

Bruketa & Zinić OM

Zagreb | Croatia
Annual report for Adris commercial property developers
25
Grid Deconstruction Column Narrative Allusion
The deconstructive strategies at play in this poster are subtle, to the point that the
grid remains visible—or does it? It’s not that the grid’s components are
separated or moved, but hidden to subvert its authority and, even, to question
whether it exists. The process of doing so speaks to relevant discussions to be
addressed in the colloquium this poster announces.
___ There are seven columns. The odd number sets up an apparent symmetry
that the designer uses to impart a sense of classicism; but then, he diverts
attention with asymmetrical configurations so bold the eye loses the center. The
symmetry is foiled again, by the distribution of text across four of the columns,
leaving two open at left and only one at right, and through the stepped weights of
vertical lines that prevent the appreciation of the columns’ regularity.
___ The grid shows itself in the house or box that invades the central
photograph. Its walls are built from the grid’s column gutters... But there are no
column gutters. The text elements below the image adhere to the columns’ left
edges, but bleed beyond their widths to create uncertain relationships in
structure. A formless scatter plot at left coalesces into a delicate, ghostly block
of text at right, straddling the non-existent column-gutter, and printed at a
frustrating level of transparency.
___ The purpose of all these sleights of hand may be revealed by the surreal
image: It harks back to so-called “fairy photography” of the late 19th century
and suggests the stuffy and, sometimes, misguided scientific societies of the
same period. The poster positions the field of architecture, and issues about
technology and convention to be addressed, in the context of Victorian
discussions similarly concerned with the natural and the metaphysical.
DESIGN

Bates Hori
New York, NY | USA
Lecture poster for the Princeton University School of Architecture
26
Axis Deconstruction/Diagonal/Image as Source
The formal conceit that drives the compositions of these posters is a diagonal
splice—a manipulation that creates movement within the static images. The
number of instances of the diagonal splice changes, as does its direction, in each
poster. It’s such a recognizable visual effect that following a particular angle is
almost unimportant as a means of establishing unity in the series; just the fact of
it is enough. That flexibility permits the designer to apply the splice as seems
best related to each image and to consider the effect of it upon the supporting
typography on a case-by-case basis.
___ The typography responds to the splice in two ways: larger, upper-level
hierarchic elements are fractured across the line, while smaller elements are set
as columns, either flush left or flush right, along the splice’s axis.
DESIGN

Kiyoko Shiromasa Timothy Samara, Instructor

New York, NY | USA
Poster series for a dance series at the Museum of Modern Art; student work
27
Spontaneous Composition / Narrative Allusion
The layout of this website is based primarily on the visual relationships between
illustrative elements within the frame. Their style refers to the aesthetics of a
particular time and place, relevant to the story told in the novel that the site
promotes. Visitors to the site will be delighted by the use of parallax, in which
elements move at different rates of speed when the page is scrolled; this creates
animated transition between the landing image and those that come into view
lower down on the page.
DESIGN

Level Design Group

New York, NY | USA
Website promoting the release of a picture book
28
Narrative Construct / Grid Deconstruction / Spontaneous
Composition
In developing a single page for a promotional calendar, the designer (also known
as an educator and theoretician) saw an opportunity to reflect on his pedagogical
processes in the context of a creative project. This is centered around three self-
imposed considerations: How to create a verbivisual text to express the process
and theory for making; how to use form as content to create a visual “text”; and
how to apply systems to collect and organize parts into a whole for relational
significance.
___ Upon being assigned the month of September, the designer considered the
page size (3 x 6’ [ 1 x 2 m], or double-square), and the page number (9th month),
which became instrumental as the ground for meaning. The number 9 is
symbolic of the academic year and the human gestation period, both related to
nurturing (the body and the mind). The page format gave rise to a grid of 18
modules (two 3 x 3-module groupings) that came to represent duality and
mirroring (“as above, so below”); external versus internal awareness; analytic
(critical thinking) versus analogic (contemplative) perspectives; and the nature
of implicate order versus indeterminacy.
___ For content, the designer followed an assignment he’d given to his students,
in which they defined the concept of hope as a series of word/image
combinations, filtered through three attitudes (favorable, neutral, and critical); he
took photographs of his students’ design processes, selecting fragments based on
momentary, isolated interest.
___ These elements were cut apart, ripped, and otherwise collaged into the grid
area, which steadily became obliterated in some areas while remaining
discoverable in others—the visual expression of a rumination on the dualities
pondered in the concepts that underpin the exploration.
DESIGN

Thomas Ockerse
Providence, RI | USA
Commissioned calendar page for Ahn Graphics, Ltd. in Seoul, Korea
29
Narrative Allusion Deconstruction Spontaneous Composition
The premise for the design of this history book about World War II—in which a
bullet hole explodes through the book block from beginning to end—came about
through a chance operation that resulted in a line of text appearing to have been
shot through (see the detail images immediately to the right). Upon seeing this
effect, the designer decided to evolve the visual effect into a physical one.
___ The book is divided into major chronological sections. Despite stark
divisions in overall use of black or white, and changes in the complexity of the
typography (it becomes more disjointed and textural when it describes military
action or humanitarian atrocity), the bullet hole’s constant, expected expansion
creates a sense of continuity and also a kind of inevitability—outcomes of the
War, if ever uncertain, are grimly reinforced.
___ Some recognizable structure remains as the type moves around and responds
to both content and the physical hole, but in many situations the structure is
obscured by overlaps of text and interference by “shrapnel.”
___ A filmic use of framing, cropping, and scaling period photographs adds a
lyrical, kinetic depth to the book’s pacing—as the images reduce to insets, the
viewer gains “distance” to analyze; as the images expand to bleed, the viewer is
immersed in the experience, sometimes at an uncomfortable level of intimacy
that underscores the lasting emotional destruction that war creates, beyond the
physical and economic.
DESIGN

Hayoung Shin Timothy Samara, Instructor

New York, NY | USA
Book about the history of World War II; student work
30
Spontaneous Composition / Image as Source
The design of this exhibition catalogue defies convention such that it’s almost
not a layout concept: Images of the artist’s work occupy the pages full-bleed,
and the text—essays and image captions—run across them. Captions are either
reversed from dark areas or print as dark on light areas (a straighforward enough
strategy)—but running text appears in a colored highlight effect, as though it has
been selected with a cursor on screen—which alters the hue relationships of the
underlying artwork to esnure the text is legible. The apparent simplicity of the
execution belies the almost obsessive attention to the selection, ordering,
cropping, color transitions, and color reversal logic of the images required to
achieve a credible result that seems—at a glance—not really designed.
DESIGN

Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation

Stuttgart | Germany
Catalogue for exhibition of artist Johannes Lotz
31
Verbal Deconstruction Narrative Allusion Image as Source
Although this elegant annual report uses a conventional column grid for its
financial disclosures and management information, its front matter has almost no
structure at all.
___ A single hangline that orients the running text is the only alignment present;
the flush-left alignment at the left margin of the pages is so close to the edge of
the format that the text almost appears to flow in from outside the book. This
single horizontal flowline establishes a clear headspace at the top of the page
into which some illustrative material is placed, but the organization of the pages
is dependent on the rhythm of the running text. Occasional callouts of key words
or phrases and a diagram of the sun traveling in the sky at particular times link
the text conceptually to a sense of place and time on Earth.
___ The horizontal line establishes a sense of horizon, which is perhaps seen
from the ocean—a design element referenced in the linear wave of text across
the pages. On the image spreads that alternate with the text spreads, a simple
visual relationship between the arc of the sun and a full-bleed image grounds the
reader.
DESIGN

Landesberg Design Assocs.

Pittsburgh, PA | USA
Annual report for Alcoa Foundation, a philanthropic organization
32
Centered-Axis Structure / Vertical+Horizontal
Many websites present material organized around the browser’s cenral axis—it’s
a sometimes helpful way of maintaining a consistent presentation as the margin
proportions to left and right change with those of the browser. This site makes
dramatic, elegant use of centered-axis structure not merely as a default
condition, but to achieve thoughtful detailing and viewing effects for the artist’s
work that it presents.
___ The navigation exists in list form and is arranged in two groupings, one
following the central vertical axis and the other following the central horizontal
axis. Each list is tethered to the exterior margin; a line rule defines the margin
along each edge and these remain constant—no matter how the browser changes
size or shape, no matter the device being used for browsing. The information
scrolls between opposing line rules (in both directions) and each text element
reveals, on mouseover, an image link to an individual page for viewing a
specific work or group of related works. Interesting spatial ambiguities and
textural complexities occur when the text and image links cross each other in the
center of the page.
___ On pages that present individual art works, the scroll direction remains the
same as that of the list (vertical or horizontal) in which the work’s link was
found. Inset, as well as silhouetted, images of works in a variety of media follow
the same scrolling logic. Text descriptions intersperse images, generally
arranged in straighforward columns whose widths are independent of
proportions related to images, negative spaces, and margins.
DESIGN

Meeus Ontwerpt
Amsterdam | Netherlands
Website for an artist working in multiple media
33
Verbal Deconstruction Narrative Allusion Pictorialization
The notion of concrete poetry extends back some four hundred years—and yet it
never disappoints in its delightful surrealism. This book of concrete poems
exploits every formal aspect of typography, at a fevered pitch, to establish its
syntactic relevance to the semantic and to ensure—uncannily—that reading
order is never in question. Subtle changes in gray value, spacing, together with
careful positioning of each word’s or phrase’s beginning and ending points, help
the reader identify where to go from one element to another, and to visually
separate a sequence of elements they’re already following from new ones they
encounter adjacent to it, or that interfere spatially with it. The designer integrates
graphical elements—dots, lines, shapes created by interstices between text—and
uses punctuation as images, whenever it suits the content of the poetry. For the
most part, though, letters and words do the heavy lifting all by themselves.
DESIGN

Warren Lehrer
Sunnyside, NY | USA
Design of a book featuring poems by Dennis Bernstein
34
Grid Deconstruction Column Splicing
Multiple gridlike structures converge in this foldout course prospectus for a fine-
arts educational program. Instances of single columns, triple columns, and
modular structures appear, each suited to the nature of the paragraph it is
structuring. The long, narrow, horizontal column of visiting artist names, for
instance, accommodates what could have been a cumbersome listing in an
unexpected way that unifies the four panels and forms a horizon line for the
architectural image in the background.
___ All of the substructures are organized relative to each other, collectively
under the influence of the enormous focal circle that links front and back panels
and draws the reader into the format from the outside. Each element counteracts
and carefully balances the tension or thrust of elements around it. Architectonic
vanishing points lock the typography to the implied landscape of buildings
where the program is housed.
DESIGN

Paone Design Associates

Philadelphia, PA | USA
Promotional collateral for University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Art
35
Grid Deconstruction Modular Splicing
This dynamically arranged exhibition incorporates many independent elements
that sit dimensionally on the surface of the wall where it is installed, including
extruded titling, panels that appear to float in front of each other, and display
cases embedded into the wall itself.
___ Most of the panels that contain information—all of different sizes, and
presenting information of differing levels of complexity—are internally
organized using grids. These grids tend to be panel-specific, however, some are,
in fact, modular, while others are hierarchic. Of all things, the caption widths are
the only consistent increment throughout. Still, the individual panels exhibit
decisive alignments within...
___ That are extrapolated, played off of, and deviated from in terms of the
panels’ arrangement. They often overlap without their edges establishing any
alignment whatsoever, and the positions of alignments within one panel rarely
meet up with those of another. Sometimes such alignments occur between the
edge of a panel and some graphical form in the panel it overlaps; or between the
top of a panel and the meanline of the lowercase letters in an adjacent titling
element.
___ The interplay of alignments and spatial proportions at this intimate level is
extroardinarily complex and detailed; it counters the deft, almost effortless
quality of the overall arrangement. A similar logic of counterpoint, that of
structure against lack thereof, pervades the wall layout at every level—some
elements adhering to grids and others freely ignoring them.
DESIGN

Poulin+Morris
New York, NY | USA
Permanent exhibition for Vassar College Integrated Sciences Commons
Directory of Contributors

___
Atlas
19, 57, 63, 118
Can Danus, 3
07001 Palma de Mallorca
Balearic Islands, Spain
www.designbyatlas.com

___
BatesHori [Allen Hori]
132, 220
1200 Broadway, #2C
New York, NY 10001 / USA
www.bateshori.com

___
Jessica Berardi
163
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 / USA
www.carnegiemellon.edu

___
Jennifer Bernstein
202–203
57 West 28th St. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
www.levelnyc.com

___
Dan Boyarski
152
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 / USA
[email protected]

___
___
Bruketa & Zini´c OM
218–219
Zavrtnica 17
10 000 Zagreb, Croatia
www.bruketa-zinic.com

___
Büro Uebele
Visuelle Kommunikation
84, 94, 170, 180, 206–207,
216–217, 226
Heusteigstrasse 94a
70180 Stuttgart, Germany
www.uebele.com

___
C. Harvey Graphic Design
67
415 West 23rd Street, 4A
New York, NY 10011 / USA
www.charvey.com

___
Cahan & Associates
29, 66
171 Second Street, 5th floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
www.cahanassociates.com

___
Jennifer Saunders Carlini
148
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 / USA
www.carnegiemellon.edu

___
David Carson
133, 150, 154
414 Broadway
New York, NY 10013 / USA
www.davidcarsondesign.com

___
Jenny Chan
136
55 Jackson Road
Hamden, CT 06517 / USA

___
Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv
72, 82, 140
formerly Chermayeff & Geismar
15 East 26th Street, 12th Floor
New York, NY 10010 / USA
www.cgnyc.com

___
Luiza Dale 178–179
435 E 9th Street, Apt. 3F
New York NY 10009 / USA
www.luizadale.com

___
Sheila deBretteville
68
Yale University School of Art
New Haven, CT 06511 / USA
www.yale.edu

___
Enterprise IG
19
570 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10022 / USA
www.enterpriseig.com

___
Frost*collective
27, 67, 83, 215
formerly Frost Design
16 Eveleigh Street
Redfern NSW 2016
Sydney, Australia
www.frostcollective.com.au

___
Frankfurt Balkind Partners
68
244 East 58th Street
New York, NY 10022 / USA
www.frankfurtbalkind.com

___
Lynn Fylak
25, 159
330 East 85th Street, No.3C
New York, NY 10024 / USA
[email protected]

___
Steff Geissbühler
129, 154
Hilton Head Island, SC / USA
www.geissbuhler.com

___
April Greiman
131, 132, 169, 183, 185
620 Moulton Avenue, Suite 211
Los Angeles, CA 90031 / USA
www.aprilgreiman.com

___
Gretel
60, 96–97, 108–109
3 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011 / USA
www.gretelny.com

___
Le Van Ho
161
University of the Arts
333 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123 / USA
www.uarts.edu

___
Kristin Hughes
[with Ink Design]
156
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 / USA
www.carnegiemellon.edu

___
Ideas On Purpose
26, 33, 65, 110–111, 214
307 Seventh Avenue, Suite 701
New York, NY 10001 / USA
www.ideasonpurpose.com

___
In[Corporate GmbH
25, 45
Postfach 10 34 06
28034 Bremen
Germany
www.incorporate.de

___
Insect 135
1-5 Clerkenwell Road
London EC1M 5PA
England
www.insect.co.uk

___
Simon Johnston
19, 134, 190
formerly Praxis, 8vo
254 Tranquillo Road
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
[email protected]

___
Yoojung Kang
63, 66, 98–99
65 Ainslie Street, Apt. 409
Brooklyn, NY 11211 / USA
[email protected]

___
Joel Katz Design Assocs.
92
1616 Walnut Street, Suite 1919
Philadelphia, PA 19103 / USA
www.joelkatzdesign.com

___
Soo Yoon Kim
159
University of the Arts
333 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19123 / USA
www.uarts.edu

___
Eri Kuwada
157, 163, 174
14-254, Fubuki-cho
Okazaki-shi
Aichi 444-0817 Japan
www.kuwadaeri.com

___
Landesberg Design
227
1219 Bingham Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15203 / USA
www.landesbergdesign.com

___
Warren Lehrer
132, 141, 166, 230
P.O. Box 4338
Sunnyside, NY 11104 / USA
www.earsay.org

___
Level Design Group
31, 38, 61, 69, 71, 73, 122–123, 222
57 West 28th St. 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10001
www.levelnyc.com

___
Maksimovic & Partners
171, 172
Johannisstraße 5
66111 Saarbrücken
Germany
www.maksimovic.de

___
Mayer & Myers Design
137, 173
619 South Tenth Street
Philadelphia, PA 19147 / USA
www.mayerandmyers.com

___
Robert McConnell
65, 120
5 Strong Place
Brooklyn, NY 11231 / USA
www.rmcconnell.com

___
McCoy & McCoy/
Katherine McCoy
18, 131, 140, 191
Buena Vista, CO / USA
United States
[email protected]
___
Meeus Ontwerpt
113, 135, 228–229
Plantage Kerklaan 35
1018 CV Amsterdam
Netherlands
www.meeusontwerpt.nl

___
MetaDesign AG
70, 81
Bergmannstrasse 102
10961 Berlin
Germany
www.metadesign.com

___
Meta Design SF
39, 121
350 Pacific Avenue, 3rd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111 / USA
www.metadesign.com

___
Nakano Design Office
27, 114–115
2-16-10 Koyama
Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo
Japan 142-0062
www.nakano-design.com

___
Niessen & deVries
149, 155, 161, 194–195
Elf Kamerbeekstraat 1020
1095 MP Amsterdam
Netherlands
www.niessendevries.nl

___
Niklaus Troxler Design
85, 162, 200
P.O. Box
CH 6130 Willisau
Switzerland
www.troxlerart.ch

___
Thomas Ockerse
61, 138, 163, 196–197, 223
37 Woodbury Street
Providence, RI 02906 / USA
[email protected]

___
Paone Design Associates, Ltd.
64, 88, 102–103, 149, 201, 231
Saint Patrick’s Schoolhouse
242 South Twentieth Street
3rd Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103 / USA
www.paonedesign.com

___
Pentagram UK
64, 101
11 Needham Road
London W11 2RP
England
www.pentagram.com

___
Pettis Design
208–209
formerly Pettistudio LLC
155 Shore Road
Clinton, CT 06413 / USA
www.pettisdesign.com

___
Laurent Pinabel
199
7078 Rue Chabot, Montreal (QC)
Canada H2E 2K5
www.pinabel.com

___
Piscatello Design Centre
28, 106
330 West 38th Street
New York, NY 10018 / USA
www.piscatello.com

___
Atelier Poisson
93, 176
Place de L’Europe 8
1003 Lausanne
Switzerland

___
Kari Porter
65, 69
57 East 3rd Street, Apt. 3A
New York, NY 10003 / USA
www.kariporter.com

___
Poulin + Morris, Inc.
28, 79, 89, 148, 232–233
46 White Street
New York, NY 10013 / USA
www.poulinmorris.com

___
RISD Graduate Design Team
204–205
Rhode Island School of Design
Two College Street
Providence, RI 02903-2784 / USA
www.risd.edu

___
Sagmeister + Walsh
25, 31, 116–117, 144,
900 Broadway, Suite 203
New York, NY 10003 / USA
www.sagmeisterwalsh.com

___
Timothy Samara
21, 39, 65, 67, 75, 143, 151, 163,
173, 177, 181, 198
117 Dobbin Street, No. 307
Brooklyn, NY 11222 / USA
www.timothysamara.com

___
Hayoung Shin
182, 224–225
444 Washington Blvd #6243
Jersey City, NJ 07310 / USA
[email protected]

___
Kiyoko Shiromasa
73, 145, 221
400 Convent Avenue, #62
New York NY 10031 / USA
[email protected]

___
Skolos/Wedell, Inc.
119, 143, 160, 188–189
125 Green Street
Canton, MA 02021 / USA
www.skolos-wedell.com

___
Small Design Firm, Inc.
104, 105, 186
75 Massachusetts Avenue
Suite 11
Cambridge, MA 02139 / USA
www.davidsmall.com
___
Stoltze Design
175, 210, 211
49 Melcher Street
Boston, MA 02210 / USA
www.stoltze.com

___
Lisa Strausfeld
[Information Art, Inc.]
90–91
1532 SW Morrison
Portland, OR 97239 / USA
www.informationart.com

___
Studio Blue
38, 68, 80
800 West Huron, #3N
Chicago, IL 60642 / USA
www.studioblue.us

___
Studio di Progettazione Grafica
[Sabina Oberholzer, AGI
& Renato Tagli]
76-77, 112
Via Cevio Vecchio 19
6675 Cevio, Switzerland
[email protected]

___
Swim Design [Andrew
Iskowitz, Laurie Swindull,
Jessica Witmer] 30
Silver Spring, MD / USA
[email protected]

___
Azusa Takahashi
179
4145 47th Street
Sunnyside, NY 11104 / USA
www.azusatakahashi.com

___
Tenazas Design
137, 167, 187
595 South Avenue
Beacon, NY 12508 / USA
www.tenazasdesign.com

___
Tolleson Design
24, 171
220 Jackson Street
Suite No. 310
San Francisco, CA 94111 / USA
www.tolleson.com

___
Total Design
18
Paalbergweg 42
1105 BV Amsterdam
Netherlands
www.totaldesign.nl

___
UNA (Amsterdam) Designers
86-87, 100
Mauritskade 55
1092 AD Amsterdam
Netherlands
www.unadesigners.nl

___
Andrea Vazquez
212–213
Rhode Island School of Design
Two College Street
Providence, RI 02903 / USA
www.risd.edu

___
Vignelli Associates
18, 70, 95
130 East 67th Street
New York, NY 10018 / USA
www.vignelli.com

___
Wolfgang Weingart
129, 130
Hochschule für Gestaltung
und Kunst
Vogelsangstrasse 15
CH 4058 Basel
Switzerland

___
Why Not Associates
29, 133, 192–193
22C Shepherdess Walk
London N1 7LB
England
www.whynotassociates.com

___
Willi Kunz Studio
29, 64, 107, 158
formerly Willi Kunz Assocs., Inc.
320 Central Park West
New York, NY 10025
www.willikunz.com

___
Kristie Williams
138–139
University of the Arts
Graphic Design Program
333 South Broad Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103 / USA
www.uarts.edu
Index by Subject

A__
A4 format, 93
active/restful contrasting relationship, 153
adjacent/overlapping contrasting relationship, 153
Adris commercial property developers, 218
AEG (german electrical works), 14
Ahn Graphics, Ltd., 223
Ahn, Ho Eun, 205
Aicher, Otl, 18
Alcoa Foundation, 227
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, 116
Allemann, Hans U., 131
Allgemeine Gewerbeschule (School of Design), 17
alternative architectures, 134
alternative cropping, 171
American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), 79, 185
Anchor Linoleum Company, 14
Anspach-Grossman Portugal, 19
Apple Computer, 132
Appolinaire, Guillaume, 127
Arp, Jean, 126
Art Nouveau, 13, 126, 129
Arts and Crafts movement, 12
asymmetrical/symmetrical relationship, 153
asymmetric composition, 15, 60
asymmetry, 15, 16, 60, 65, 143
Atelier Poisson, 93, 176
Atlas, 19, 57, 63, 118
axis deconstruction, 221

B__
B__
Ball, Hugo, 126
Ballmer, Theo, 16, 17
bar graphs, 172
Barnbrook, Jonathan, 133
Barthes, Roland, 132
Basel designers, 17, 128, 129
baseline alignment, 49
baseline grid, correlating row structure with, 51
BatesHori (Allen Hori), 132, 220
Bauhaus, the, 15, 16, 28, 127
Bayer, Herbert, 15, 16
Bazzo Magazine, 199
Beach Culture (magazine), 133
Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (poster), 15
Beaux-Arts tradition, 12
Behrens, Peter, 13, 16
Berardi, Jessica, 163
Bernbach, Bill, 129
Bernstein, Dan, 166
Bernstein, Dennis, 230
Bernstein, Jennifer, 202
Biesele, Igildo, 128
bilateral symmetry, 142
Bill, Max, 16, 17, 18
binary grid, 84
Blaue Reiter painters, 15, 127
block (manuscript) grid, 14, 24
deconstruction, 191, 206
block manuscript, 13, 14
body (page), 22
book format page structure, 22
Books of Hope website, 121
Bos, Ben, 18
Boyarski, Dan, 152
branching structure, 147
Bruketa & Zinic OM, 218
bullets, 37
Burne-Jones, Edward, 12
Büro Uebele Visuelle Kommunikation, 84, 94, 170, 180, 206, 216, 226

C__
Cabaret Voltaire, 126
calendars/calendar grid, 137, 158, 173, 223
Canongate Books, Ltd., 101
Carnegie Mellon, 131
Carson, David, 133, 150, 154
categorical lists, 172
Celebration of Life and Art (Behrens), 14
centered-axis structure, 142, 198, 228
chaining/helical structure, 147
chance operations, 164, 196, 225
Chan, Jenny, 136
Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv, 72, 82, 140
Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, 186
Chronicle Books, 191
Chwast, Seymour, 129
Citibank, 19
clustering structure, 147
CNBC Prime cable channel, 108
codex, 22
collage, 94, 127, 152, 196, 212
Collective Wisdom Initiative, 204
Columbia University School of Architecture and Urban Planning, 107
column deconstruction, 136, 192, 216, 220, 231
column grids—
dimensional, 105
exhibits, 80, 82, 88, 92, 94, 100, 102, 105, 106, 110, 114
explained, 26
with flexible row structure, 118
flowlines in, 38
with hierarchic zones, 102
for website, 106
column gutters, 23, 36, 37, 48, 50, 220
columns—
determining structure for, 48
image behavior and, 34
in page structure, 23
paragraph breaks of text and, 37
universal proportion and, 52
column structure, developing, 48
compositional flow, 168
compositional logic, 64
compound grids—
column and modular grids, 110
explained, 32
hierarchic and rotated-column, 122
modular and hierarchic, 90, 113, 121
overlap of modular grids, 107
compressed/expanded
contrasting relationship, 153
computer, 132. see also websites
concentric/nested structure, 147, 148
constellational structure, 147
Constructivism, 14, 127
continuous/interrupted contrasting relationship, 153
contrast—
with centered-axis structure, 144
hierarchy established through, 168
with spontaneous composition, 152, 154
types of contrasting relationships, 153
used with alternative layouts, 168, 169
cookbooks, 69, 73, 120, 145
Cooper, Muriel, 104
corporate grid, 18
Cranbrook Academy, 131
cropping, 161, 171, 174
Crouwel, Wim, 18
Cubism, 127
Cubist poets, 127
Cultural Connections (Temple University Press), 92
curve/angle contrasting relationship, 153
curvilinear deformations, 139
Cut and Paste (journal), 212

D__
Dada, 126
Dale, Luiza, 178
deBretteville, Sheila, 132
deconstruction—
axis, 221
coining of term, 132
column, 136, 192, 206, 216, 220, 231
by deformation and distortion, 138, 191, 208, 212, 218
explained, 134
historical background, 132
of manuscript grid, 191, 206
physical, of modular grid, 190
Ruder, Emil and, 128
by splitting, splicing, and shifting, 135, 136, 192, 202, 210, 214
spontaneous composition and, 208, 214, 223
verbal and editorial, 134, 140, 200, 227, 230
default template structures, 56
deformation, grid deconstruction by, 138, 191, 208, 212, 218
depth, quality of, 68
de Saussure, Ferdinand, 127
Designing Programmes (Gerstner), 18
de Stijl axis, 6
de Stijl movement, 15
detailing/inclusions, 170
Deutsche Werkbund, 14
deVries, Esther, 113. see also Niessen & deVries
diagonal splice, 221
diagrammatic information, 186
Die Neue Typographie (Tschichold), 16
Diller Scofidio & Renfrew, 90
dimensional column grid, 105
dimensional modular grid, 104
DIN (Deutsches Institut für Normung), 16
distortion—
grid deconstruction by, 138
as typographic strategy, 170
dot/line contrasting relationship, 153
dots, 41, 168, 173, 182
Druckrey, Inge, 131
Duchamp, Marcel, 126
Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, 84
Dutch Royal Foundation of Graphic Enterprises (KVGO), 86
dynamic list sequence, 216
Dz Group, 88

E__
East Coast designers, 131
editorial deconstruction, 140
8vo, 19
Elementare Typographie, 16
Emigre, 133
Erickson, Sheryl, 205
“eye path,” 168

F__
Fella, Edward, 131
Fibonacci, Leonardo, 146
financial tables, 172
fire by trial approach, 42, 45
fitness of purpose, 12
flat/textural contrasting relationship, 153
flowlines, 23, 27, 35, 38
fold line, 22
folios, 22, 25, 40, 98
fonts, 46, 48, 156
footer, 22
Forest Design, 83
format(s)—
correlating multiple image, 54
integrating media and, 76
page, 22
physicalities of, 44
proportional relationships between images and, 53, 54
relation to body to, 65
sequence-based, 74
Foucault, Michel, 132
four-column grid, 27
French Fries (Lehrer), 132
Freud, Sigmund, 126
Friedman, Dan, 131
full bleeds, 35
Futurism, 127
Fylak, Lyn, 159

G__
Gaidula, Danniel, 205
Geissbühler, Steff, 72, 129, 131, 140, 154
geometric/organic contrasting relationship, 153
German Association of Craftsmen, 14
German Institute for Standardization, 16
Gerstner, Karl, 18
Getty Research Institute, 190
Gill, Bob, 129
Glaser, Milton, 129
Glasgow Four, 13
Glasgow School of Art, 13
Gonda, Tomás, 18
The Grammar of Ornament (Jones), 12
Grand Duke of Hesse, 13
The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems (Müller-Brockman), 17
“graph paper” variant of modular grid, 81, 89, 108
Greiman, April, 131, 132, 183, 185
Gretel, 96, 108
grid(s). see also column grids; compound grids; hierarchic grids; modular grid—
building, 42
inside margins of an individual page, 23
interaction design without, 178
manuscript, 24, 191, 206
using, 62
grid system__
alternatives to. See non-structural design
basics of, 20
benefits of using, 11
historical background, 6, 12
systematic order to a layout through, 11
Grid Systems in Graphic Design (Müller-Brockman), 17
Gropius, Walter, 15, 16
grouped/separated contrasting relationship, 153
gutter, 22, 114, 138. see also column gutters; row gutters

H__
hanging indents, 37
hard/soft contrasting relationship, 153
harmonic spacing, 50
Hatch Show Prints, 163
Hausemann, Raoul, 127
Haycock, Laurie, 132
header, 22
hierarchic grids, 16, 30, 101— with alternative layouts, 168
with modular grid, 90, 113, 121
and rotated-column grid, 122
row grid with, 96
row-structured, 93
spatial zones and, 39
for website, 121
hierarchic modular rows, 80
The Hobby Horse (periodical), 13
Hoch, Hanna, 127
Hoffman, Armin, 130
Hoffman, Josef, 13
Hoffmann, Armin, 128
Ho, Le Van, 161
Hori, Allen (BatesHori), 132, 220
horizontal bands and spatial zones, 17, 39
Hughes, Kristin, 156
Hyland, Angus, 101

I__
Ideas on Purpose, 26, 33, 110, 214
Igarashi, Takenobu, 79
image as source, 226
image behavior, 34
images and imagery—
alignment of edges of, 34
filling an entire page, 35
inset in rectangles, 171
of multiple formats, correlating, 54
overlapping each other, 35
proportional relationships between formats and, 53, 54
silhouetted, 35
as a source for building a grid, 52
as a source for developing layout, 156, 226
text set on top of, 35
vernacular, 132, 162
In Dialogue publication, 122
Industrial Revolution, 12
information design, 172
initial caps, 37
Ink Design, 156
Insect, 135
Insel Verlag, 16
inset/bleeding contrasting relationship, 153
interaction design, 56
interline space, 47
International Style, 6, 17, 18, 28, 128, 131
Internet, the, 19. see also websites
intuitive approaches, 128, 133, 150
irregular shaping, 170
The Isms of Art (Lissitsky), 15
ISO “world size” posters, 77
Itten, Johannes, 15, 127

J__
Johnston, Simon, 19, 134, 190
Jones, Owen, 12
Jugendstijl, 13, 128
justified text, 47, 69, 191

K__
Kandinsky, Wassily, 15
Kang, Yoojung, 63, 66, 98
Kansas City Art Institute, 131
Katz Wheeler, 92
Keaney, Siobahn, 133
Keller, Ernst, 16
Kelmscott Press, 13
Kids Art, Inc., 181
Kim, Soo Yoon, 159
Kim, Young, 154
Kliment Halsband, 106
Kunstgewerbeschule, Ulm, Germany, 129
Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich, Switzerland, 16
Kunz, Willi, 131
Kuwada, Eri, 157, 163, 174
KVGO (Dutch Royal Foundation of Graphic Enterprises), 86

L__
large/small contrasting relationship, 153
Laurence King Publishing, 83
Lauweriks, J.L. Mathieu, 14
Learning from Las Vegas (Venturi/Scott-Brown), 131
Le Hasard (Chance), 126
Lehrer, Warren, 132, 140, 166, 230
Level Design Group, 122, 222
light/dark contrasting relationship, 153
linear frames, text surrounded by, 41
lines, spacing within, 46
Lissitsky, El (Lazar Markovich), 14, 16, 127
Lohse, Richard Paul, 17
London International Festival of Theatre, 215
Lotz, Johannes, 226
Lufthansa (German airline), 18
Lyceum Organization, 188

M__
Macintosh, Charles Rennie, 13
Mackmurdo, Arthur, 13
MacNair, James, 13
Makela, Laurie Haycock, 132
Makela, P. Scott, 132
Maksimovic & Partners, 172
Mallarmé, Stéphane, 127
manuscript grid, 24, 191, 206
margins, 22, 40—
building a grid and, 49
centered-axis structure, 228
column grid, 82
compound grids, 32
manuscript grid, 24
positioning of body and, 65
Marinetti, Filippo, 127
markers, 23
Massachusetts College of Art (MCA), 210
Mayer & Myers, 137, 173
McConnell, Robert, 120
McCoy, Katherine, 9, 19, 131, 140
McCoy & McCoy, 191
McDonald, Frances, 13
McDonald, Margaret, 13
media, integrating formats and, 76
Meeus Ontwerpt, 113, 135, 228
Merz, 127
MetaDesign, 19, 81, 121
Metahaven, 195
metaphorical allusion, 160
Method (firm), 19
Milan, Italy, 18
MIT Media Lab, 104, 105
Modernism, 6, 15, 129, 132
modular grid, 28
with alternating binary increments, 84
correlating multiple image formats for, 55
modular grid (cont’d)—
deconstruction, 138, 190, 232
with deviations, 85
dimensional, 104
exhibits, 79, 81, 84, 95, 98, 104, 108, 110, 112, 113, 119, 120
“graph paper” variant, 81, 89, 108
hierarchic grid with, 90, 113, 121
overlapping, 107
qualities of depth and, 68
row structure and, 49
with scaled deviations, 119
spatial zones in, 39
in 3D format for website, 90
modules, 17, 23, 28
image-format relationship and, 53
spatial zones and, 39
used with column grid, 88
Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo, 15, 16, 127
Mondrian, Piet, 6
Morris and Company, 13
Morris, William, 12, 14
Moscoso, Victor, 129
Moser, Koloman, 13
Müller-Brockmann, Josef, 6, 8, 17, 18, 52, 129
Museum of Modern Art, poster series for dance series at, 221
Myers, Chris, 131

N__
Nakano Design Office, 114
Nakata, Robert, 132
narrative allusions, 162, 187, 194, 200, 202, 212, 220, 222, 224, 227, 230
narrative construct, 160, 223
navigation (websites), 40
negative spaces, 16, 21, 191
nested structure, 147, 186
Netherlands, the, 18
networked structure, 147
Neuberg, Hans, 17
Neue Grafik, 17
Niessen & deVries, 149, 155, 161, 194
Niessen, Richard, 113
Niklaus Troxler Design, 85, 162, 200
NKF, 128
non-orthogonal grid deconstruction, 137
non-structural design, 125
centered-axis structure, 142, 198, 228
chance operations, 164, 196
deconstruction. See deconstruction hierarchy and navigation for, 168
historical survey of, 126
imagery used as inspiration for, 156, 226
info-graphic material and, 172
narrative allusions strategy. See narrative allusions
narrative constructs strategy, 160, 223
pacing and sequencing with, 181
pictorial strategies, 171, 230
for screen-based interactivity, 178
spontaneous compositions. See spontaneous composition
systematizing the organic for, 174
typographic strategies for, 170
using other kinds of geometric structure, 146
verbal/editorial deconstruction, 140, 200, 227, 230
vernacularism, 162, 194
notational elements, 40, 206
numeric progressions, 146

O__
Ockerse, Thomas, 61, 138, 165, 196, 205, 212, 223
Octavo (journal), 19
Olbrich, Josef Maria, 13, 14
1:1:1 (magazine), 194
Ontwerpt, Meeus, 228
opaque/transparent contrasting relationship, 153
Op Art pattern, 163
optimal character count, 47
ordered/disordered contrasting relationship, 153
orthogonal/diagonal contrasting relationship, 153
orthogonal grid deconstruction, 136
orthogonal logic, 20, 112
orthogonal orientation, 6, 173, 189
outdents, 37

P__
pacing for non-structural designs, 182
pacing logic, 74
page format, 22
page layout, 22
page number, 22
page structure, 20, 23
Paone Design Associates, 64, 88, 102, 149, 201, 231
parallel/divergent contrasting relationship, 153
part-to-whole relationship, 21
Pentagram UK-Angus Hyland, 101
Pettis Design, 208
Pettis, Valerie, 131
Philadelphia College of Art, 131
physical deconstruction, 190
physical deformation, 218
pictographs, 172
pictorialization, 160, 170, 230
pie charts, 172
Pierce, Charles, 127
Pinabel, Laurent, 199
Piscatello Design Center, 106
planar/volumetric contrasting relationship, 153
Poltrona Frau, 95
Pop Art, 132, 162
Poulin & Morris, 28, 79, 89, 148, 232
Pratt Institute, 122
Princeton University School of Architecture, 220
programmed chance operations, 165, 196
PushPin Group, 129

Q__
Quereng, Fritz, 18
quotation marks, 37

R__
radial structure, 147
ragged text, 37, 47
randomized layout, 200
random physical action, 164
Rand, Paul, 18
Raygun (magazine), 133
readability, 168
Red House, 12
regular/irregular contrasting relationship, 153
Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), 119
rhythmic pacing, 74
Roericht, Nick, 18
rolled scrolls, 22
rotated-column grid, hierarchic grid and, 122
rotational structure, 147
row grid, with modular and hierarchic application, 96
row gutters, 23, 36, 49, 51, 84
rows—
alignment, 35
basic rules using, 34
compound grids, 32
hierarchic modular, 80
image behavior and, 34
in page structure, 23
universal proportion and, 52
row structure—
column grid with flexible, 118
correlating with baseline grid, 51
developing, 49
row-structured hierarchic grid, 93
Ruder, Emil, 17, 128, 130
Rudin, Nelly, 128
runner (page), 22
runners, 40
running foot/footer, 22
running head/header, 22
running side, 22
running text, 26, 36, 48, 92, 114, 140, 226, 227
Ruskin, John, 12
Russia, 14

S__
Sagmeister & Walsh, 25, 31, 116, 144
Samara, Timothy, 21, 39, 61, 65, 67, 75, 99, 120, 139, 143, 149, 151, 159, 162, 163, 169, 173, 177,
181, 198, 221, 225
sans serif typeface, 14, 16, 46, 58, 96, 109
Santoro, Scott, 132
scatter plots, 172, 220
School of Arts and Crafts, Düsseldorf, 14
Schwitters, Kurt, 127
Scott-Brown, Denise, 131, 132
screens, building a grid for, 56. see also websites
Second Industrial Revolution, 132
sequence-based format, 74
sequencing, 81, 168, 182, 216
shifting, grid, 136
Shin, Hayoung, 182, 224
Shiromasa, Kiyoko, 145, 219
silhouetted images, 35
simple/complex contrasting relationship, 153
sketches, for planning process of building a grid, 43
Skolos/Wedell, 119, 143, 160, 188
Small, David, 104
Small Design Firm, Inc., 105
smart phones, 56, 58, 106, 116, 145, 178, 181, 217
solid/fragmented contrasting relationship, 153
spacing, building a grid and, 46, 50
sparklines, 172
spatial zones, 17, 23, 39, 45, 70
spiraling structure, 147
splicing, grid, 136, 191, 192, 202, 210, 214, 231
split-fountain printing, 195
splitting, grid, 136
spontaneous composition, 133, 150
exhibits, 185, 187, 194, 198, 201, 208, 210, 214, 222
spread, 22
Springer Verlag publishers, 81
Staatliches Bauhaus (the Sate Home for Building), 15
staggering structure, 147
stepping structure, 147
Stoltze Design, 175, 210, 211
Strausfeld, Lisa, 90
structural thinking, 6, 19, 21, 128
structure—
alternative kinds of, 134
book format page, 22
centered-axis, 142, 198, 228
imagery as source for compositional, 156
as meaning and metaphor, 60
other kinds of geometric, 146
The Studio (periodical), 13
Studio Blue, 80
Studio di Progetazzione Grafica, 112
Suprematism, 14
surface activity, quality of, 68
Surrealism, 126
Swiss designers, 16
Swiss International Style. See International Style
Swiss New Wave, 132
Symbolist approach, 127, 128
symmetrical/asymmetrical contrasting relationship, 56, 153
symmetry, 60, 65, 142, 143, 144. see also centered-axis structure

T__
tables, 82, 172
tabular information, 11, 29
Takahashi, Azusa, 179
The Talmud Project, 105
TED Conference LLC, 104
Temple University Press, 92
Tenazas Design, 137, 167, 187
Tenazas, Lucille, 132
text. see also type/typography
alignment options, 36
colored boxes surrounding, 41
grid deconstruction and, 191, 213
linear frames surrounding, 41
point size, 46
ragged, 37, 47
set on top of an image, 35
special cases concerning, 37
text centered-axis, 37
text style, building a grid and, 48, 49, 51
textual inclusions, 37
textural alteration/manipulation, 170, 171
textured/patterned contrasting relationship, 153
thin/thick contrasting relationship, 153
Thorn-Prikker, Johan, 128
Times Roman font, 46
Toorop, Jan, 128
touchpoints, 76, 77
tree diagrams, 172, 173
Tschichold, Jan, 16
2/1 formation, 111
typeface, 14, 46, 217
typesetting proportions, building a grid based on, 48
type/typography—
Carson, David and, 133
choosing, for building a grid, 46
Dada’s use of, 127
interacting within page structure, 20
Itten’s use of, 127
relationship to imagery, 156
Ruder’s use of, 128
spacing and, 50
type/typography (cont’d)—
used with non-structural design, 170
of Weingart, Wolfgang, 129
typographic grid. See grid system
typographic space, 21
Typography (Ruder), 128
Tzara, Tristan, 126

U__
Ulm School of Applied Arts, 17
UMASS Dartmouth College of Visual and Performing Arts, 211
Una (Amsterdam) Designers, 19, 86, 100
unconventional layout approaches. See non-structural design
uniform/differentiated contrasting relationship, 153
Unimark International, 19, 131
Univers family of typefaces, 128
University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Design, 102, 201, 231
University of Rochester Medical Center, 89
U.S. National Park Service, 19
Utopia (Itten), 127
UX design, 19

V__
van der Rohe, Mies, 16
Van Doesburg, Theo, 6, 15, 127
Van Lanschot (Dutch bank), 100
variation, 70, 74, 81, 82, 158, 174, 176
Vassar College Integrated Science Commons, 232
Vazquez, Andrea, 212
Venturi, Robert, 131, 132
verbal deconstruction, 134, 140, 200, 227, 230
vernacularism, 131, 132, 162, 194, 198
Viennese Secession, 13
Vignelli Associates, 18, 19, 70, 95
Vignelli, Lella, 18
Vignelli, Massimo, 9, 18
vignetting, 171
violation of rules, 72, 134
Vivarelli, Carlo, 17

W__
Walker, Sir Emery, 13
waving/arcing structure, 147
Webb, Philip, 12, 13
Webpage, 22
websites—
centered-axis structure for, 228
column grid, 80, 94, 106, 116
compound grid, 91, 113, 121
dynamic list sequence, 216
exhibits, 80, 90, 94, 106, 113, 116, 121, 216, 222, 228
hierarchic grid and, 30, 80
integrating formats with, 77
interaction design without grids for, 178
navigation in, 40
spatial zones and, 39
spontaneous composition, 222
Weimar Arts and Crafts School, 15
Weimar Bauhaus, 94, 127
Weingart, Wolfgang, 129
Werkbund, the, 14
West, Anne, 205
Westinghouse, 18
white space. See negative spaces
Why Not Associates, 29, 133, 192
Wilde, Lorraine, 132
Willi Kunz Studio, 29, 64, 107, 158
Willisau Rathaus, 85, 200
Wissing, Bruno, 18
Wolf, Henry, 129
words per line, 46
The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Morris), 13, 14
World War II, 14, 129, 182, 224
Wright, Frank Lloyd, 13

X, Y, Z
Zelinsky, Christine, 131
Zwart, Piet, 128
Bibliography / Recommended Reading

Aicher, Otl.
World as Design. NP: VCH Publications, 1994.

Aldersey-Williams, Hugh et al.

Cranbrook Design: The New Discourse. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.

Aldersey-Williams, Hugh.
New American Design. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.

Bayer, Herbert; Gropius, Walter; and Gropius, Ise, editors.

Bauhaus 1919–1928. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1938.

Bosshard, Hans Rudolf.

The Typographic Grid. Sulgen/Zurich: Niggli AG, 2000.

Buddensieg, Tilmann.
Industrialkultur: Peter Behrens and the AEG. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984.

Celant, Germano, et al.

Design: Vignelli. New York: Rizzoli, 1990.

Dickerman, Leah, editor.

Building the Collective: Soviet Graphic Design 1917-1937; Selections from the Merrill C. Berman
Collection. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1996.

Doig, Allan.
Theo Van Doesburg: Painting into Architecture, Theory into Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1986.

Gerstner, Karl.
Designing Programmes. Teufen AR, Switzerland: Arthur Niggli, 1968.

Hoffmann, Armin.
Armin Hoffmann: His Work, Quest and Philosophy. Basel, Boston, Berlin: Birkhauser Verlag, 1989.

Kunz, Willi.
Typography: Macro-and Micro—
aesthetics. Teufen, Switzerland: Verlag Arthur Niggli, 1999.

Lupton, Ellen.
Mixing Messages: Graphic Design in Contemporary Culture. New York: Princeton Architectural Press,
1997.

Lupton, Ellen and Miller, J. Abbott, editors.

The ABCs of the Bauhaus and Design Theory. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1995.

McLean, Ruari.
Jan Tschichold: Typographer. London: Lund Humphries, 1975.

Meggs, Philip B.
A History of Graphic Design, Third
Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1998.

Müller-Brockmann, Josef.
The Graphic Artist and His Design
Problems. Teufen AR, Switzerland: Verlag Arthur Niggli, 1968.

Müller-Brockmann, Josef.
Grid Systems in Graphic Design. Niederteufen: Verlag Arthur Niggli, 1981.

Naylor, Gilliam.
The Bauhaus Reassessed: Sources and Design Theory. Herbert, 1985.

Purvis, Alston.
Dutch Graphic Design: 1918–1945.
New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992.

Rand, Paul.
Thoughts on Design. New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1970.

Rotzler, Willy.
Constructive Concepts. New York:
Rizzoli, 1977.

Ruder, Emil.
Typography. Teufen AR, Switzerland: Arthur Niggli, 1968.

Tschichold, Jan.
Die Neue Typographie (The New Typography). Berlin: Verlag des Bildungsverbandes, 1928.

Tschichold, Jan. Designing Books.

New York: Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., 1951.

Venturi, Robert; Brown, Denise Scott; Izenour, Steven.

Learning from Las Vegas. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1977.
Weingart, Wolfgang.
My Way to Typography. Lars Müller Verlag: Baden, Switzerland, 2000.
About the Author

Timothy Samara is a New York-based graphic designer and educator whose twenty-five-year career
has focused on visual identity and branding, communication design, and typography for large
corporations, nonprofit organizations, and start-up entrepreneurs.

Since 2000, he has split his time between professional practice and academia, defining a highly
respected reputation as an instructor at Purchase College/SUNY, Parsons/The New School for Design,
Marymount Manhattan College, Rutgers University, The University of the Arts, New York University,
School of Visual Arts, and Fashion Institute of Technology.

Mr. Samara is a frequent university lecturer and contributor to design publications both in the U.S. and
abroad. He has written eight books on design to date (all from Rockport Publishers), which have been
translated into ten languages and are used by students and practitioners around the world. He
graduated a Trustee Scholar from the Graphic Design Program of The University of the Arts,
Philadelphia, in 1990.
Acknowledgments

Assembling material for a book of this kind depends on the good will of so many busy people—as much
this time around as for the first edition. My sincere thanks to all of the designers who collected examples
of their work for consideration, for their suggestions, and for their great encouragement.
___I am grateful to Massimo Vignelli, who very graciously gave me four hours out of a busy day back in
2001 to meet with me and speak in-depth about this book’s subject. I was deeply saddened by
Massimo’s passing in 2014 and, just recently, by that of his wife, Lella. Even before I became a designer,
their vision was a great source of inspiration.
___I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge the efforts of the team at Rockport, whose diligence and
patience cannot be overstated: Thank you to Regina, David, Cora, Judith, Anne, and Barbara; and to
Betsy, also recently departed, my sincere appreciation for helping me to become a better writer—you
are sorely missed.
___And last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my partner Sean, my family, and all my friends
for their continued support.
© 2002, 2007 The Quarto Group
Second edition published in 2017

First published in the United States of America

in 2002 by Rockport Publishers, an Imprint of
The Quarto Group
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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the
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the artists concerned, and no responsibility is accepted by producer, publisher, or printer for any
infringement of copyright or otherwise, arising from the contents of this publication. Every effort has been
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We apologize for any inaccuracies that may have occurred and will resolve inaccurate or missing
information in a subsequent reprinting of the book.

Digital edition published in 2017

Digital edition: 978-1-63159409-0

Softcover edition: 978-1-63159-284-3

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available Cover and Text Design: Timothy Samara