grid systems

Note for ART413, A type primer p.152-181

In this chapter, I learn how to make a grid for a document/book, and I think it’s very useful when I create a grid system for my project III, a booklet. As this booklet has to be stylish and legible and meaningful for the design I make. So I have to consider the amount of the text/imagines, the kinds of text/imagines, the levels of meaning and importance with the text/imagines, the relationship between text and imagines, and the relationship between text/imagines and the reader. Also a grid is a system to organize and clarify text on a page and amplifying its meaning. In other words, it is a foundation of expressing one’s voices within the text through color and position on the page. In this chapter, the author display different kinds of layouts for display type and text, some of them look more tradition while the other more interesting. When design the text need less pictorial and more organic than with display type. When set a grid, first set in vertical axes and gutters, the vertical gutter should be around 2 ems of the text type; then set in type ruler and cross-align the body text to the type ruler; then set in horizontal axes and gutters, the horizontal gutter is determined by the leading of one line of text type. In addition, to set the caption and headline length/leading for the text, they need to be multiples of the text length/leading. Also, they need to be cross-aligned. Sometime if there are sidebar and text, they are required to do the cross-alignment too. In this chapter, it also introduces how to create grid for text and imagines. Above all, I think this chapter is very useful as a fundamental for my project; meanwhile, I need to check other source book for more diverse layouts.