Making & Breaking the Grid: A Personal Reflection
Have you ever opened a book or picked up a flyer only to set it down right away? The lack of a grid often leads to more work for the reader as we don’t easily see the main ideas and cant quickly understand the message we are supposed to get. “THE GRID” can seem like a daunting and serious element when it comes to graphic design, as well as digital imaging, photography, painting, and for that matter every medium of art.
Deciding which style of grid to use, and how to lay it out in the most successful manner both conceptually and contextually is often the most important and thus difficult decision, as it either enhances your work in its readability, or ruins great ideas. But without it we are left in a congested world of confusion. And once studied and the purpose understood, we realize just how natural the grid is in our life, and thus why it is so important to maintain it in our work.
When I first realized that the grid is not manmade and that it is, in fact, everywhere in nature, I was stoked. I mean, how beautiful and amazing is the Nautilus shell? It is seen as absolute perfection in accordance to the Fibonacci spiral and Golden Proportion, where we have come to understand what is perceived as the point of greatest interest, created naturally, and mathematically reproduced to an absolute. Throughout nature we see the grid played out over and over again, in spider webs, the pattern moss creates when growing, bee hives and so on. Flying high above in a plane, looking at the world below, you realize everything is formatted to a grid, plots of land, rows of corn, vineyards, rivers running through the land, and roads, the layout of cities and town, neighborhood blocks, buildings with all their windows and paneling; life functions off the grid. The grid is where we find functionality and flow… it allows everything to have its place in time.
During the English Arts and Crafts Movement “Morris and Company vigorously advocated the notion that fitness of purpose inspired form… a way of working that responded to content.” Like the roads that serve to get us from point a to point b in the most direct method, the purpose of a design or work of art creates a natural form, an underlying grid, if we allow ourselves to see it and then use it. We respond to the content and meaning of the work, which we know best, by presenting it in the most effective way for the viewers to understand it. And in doing so we not only create but realize the significance of space, emptiness and utilize this when placing images, points of focus and text; the placement of space has great importance both visually as well as contextually. But we have to keep in mind what the purpose our art is to serve… is it meant to break the tight constraints that can be created from the grid?
I am a firm believer in the title of this book. I understand you must first understand the purpose of the grid, create the most appropriate grid for the piece and then break it to some extent, making it personable, with a human touch. We like the element of surprise, it keeps us interested when done in organized way; some letters running out of the column or overlapping, images that run of the page maybe even onto another, and so on. I like when there are a few elements that explode the grid… its more fun I suppose; too tight of a constraint can never be good- who likes overwhelming structure? I mean, its good to have rules imposed, but then take it to the limits!
Anyway, doing a lot of work in graphic design, and being a person who loves organizing and feeling a sense of control, I appreciate grids immensely, however, I don’t like things too clean, or too structured. I need a human touch… and as you know we humans are not perfect!
Posted by: Mary Reeds