This week we’ve been working a lot on large scale print designs that, to appear professional and clean need have a consistent and strong foundation that will help drive the project to completion without time getting lost in the cracks of every single minute item. The use of a set grid helps immensely in moving forward with a project like this.
Grids are the underlaying foundation of all good design, doesn’t matter if its printed or digital.
Because it is such a fundamental element of design it’s important for all designers and customers wanting strong dynamic design to have at east the basic understanding of how these are used and why.
1) Tempo
Grids, in a traditional and historical sense have the most obvious purpose of establishing a guide about
how various visual and text elements should be organised on any given layout. This underlaying grid gives your end design a tempo that reflects that grid. A small completely guided a4 will look much busier and faster than one that a design that uses only a 4 split grid.
This is a great way to subtly help users understand the content of your design – a slow relaxed design would work great for Spa advertising but not so great for a football club.
2) Proportion
The second key ability of the grid is to help determine how elements relate to each other by defining the size of each design element.
Audiences understand how information relates to each other by their proportional relationship; a large headline is more important then a small one, the image in the centre is more important than the one in the corner and so on.
3) Balance
As implied by the above points the grid also helps to add balance and consistency to you design, helping the end user understand and absorb the content. It helps viewers identify the important sections vs the parts they can skim past. Consistency comes from the same underlaying grid being used across that design and future designs.
Grids are important to even the smallest piece of design, but are life savers when it comes to large projects such as annual reports, compatibility brochures or corporate reports.
