OUGD404 Grid Systems

Single Column Grid

Every time you open a new document in a page layout program, you are prompted to create a grid. The simplest grid consists of a single column of text surounded by margins. By asking for page dimensions and margin widths from the outset, layout programs encourage you to design your page from the outside in. (The text column is the space left over when the margins have been subtracted.) Alternatively, you can design your page from the inside out, by setting your margins to zero and then positioning guidelines and text boxes on a blank page. This allows you to experiment with the margins and columns rather than making a commitment as soon as you open a new document. You can add guidelines to a master page after they meet your satisfaction.

Books and magazines should be designed as spreads (facing pages). The two-page spread, rather than the individual page, is the main unit of design. Left and right margins become inside and outside margins. Page layout programs assume that the inside margins are the same on both the left- and right-hand pages, yielding a symmetrical, mirror-image spread. You are free, however, to set your own margins and create an asymmetrical spread.
Modular Grid

A modular grid has consistent horizontal divisions from top to bottom in addition to vertical divisions from left to right. These modules govern the placement and cropping of pictures as well as text. In the 1950s and 1960s, Swiss graphic designers including Gerstner, Ruder, and Müller-Brockmann devised modular grid systems like the one shown here.




Multicolumn Grid 

Multicolumn grids provide flexible formats for publications that have a complex hierarchy or that integrate text and illustrations. The more columns you create, the more flexible your grid becomes. You can use the grid to articulate the hierarchy of the publication by creating zones for different kinds of content. A text or image can occupy a single column or it can span several. Not all the space has to be filled.