“Begin with the end in mind.”

-Covey

Does the typographic detail visually relate to image styles as well

as convey messages appropriate to the text?

Does the form of the graphic elements communicate with images?

Do the images play off each other to enhance intended messages,

and does any image or combination thereof deliver unintended

message?

Does the color system add to the concept?

What about print techniques, paper, and binding details?

Figuring out what goes where, in what order, and how it should be arranged from a compositional stand point demands a lot from a designer.

How structured, neutral, or documentary does

the presentation need to be?

What happens if the material is organized in a

less structured way?

How are the images and text visually related,

and how do they interact within the format?

Structured

Less Structured

All design work involves problem solving on

both visual and organizational levels.

a. Pictures

b. Text

c. Headlines

d. Tabular Data

All must come

together to

communicate

Anatomy of a Grid

The benefits of working with a grid are simple:

1. Clarity

2. Efficiency

3. Economy

4. Continuity

It introduces systematic order to layout, helps distinguish between various types of information, and eases a user’s navigation through them.

1. Column Grid -very flexible -in changing the type

size, leading, spacing, the designer will be able to find a comfortable column width

-there is a subordinate

structure—the flowing lines/vertical intervals

2. Modular Grid

-for extremely complex projects

-a column grid with a large number of horizontal

flow lines that subdivides columns into rows

creating modules

3. Grid Hybrids and Combinations

-depends on the complexity of publication

a. Grid with a large number of precise intervals maybe developed as a basis for a variety of grids to be used.

b. Use two, three, or more different grids that share outer margins, allowing them to be relatively arbitrary in their relationship to each other.

c. Combine grids on a single page but to separate them into different areas.

Grid by image

Grid by text

-the way in which columns of text interact with

negative space is an important aspect of how a grid

is articulated

-the spaces above and below columns play an active

part in giving the columns a rhythm as they relate to

each other across pages and spreads

-regularity must exist in the alteration of column logic

to be meaningful; otherwise, the audience simply

recognizes the change but not its significance

Used for a more dynamic visual narrative of

parts.

To call attention to some feature of the content or

to create some surprise for the reader.

Make it memorable.

The decision to use a grid always comes down to

the nature of the content in a given project.

Sometimes the content has its own internal

structure that a grid won’t necessarily clarify.

-splitting apart of a conventional grid

-illusion of space

seeing the inherent visual relationships and

contrasts within the material and making

connections for the viewer based on those

relationships

making quick decisions as the material is put

together and the relationships are first seen

derive visual idea from the context and impose it

on the page format as kind of arbitrary structure

the structure can be an illusory representation of

a subject, like waves or the surface of water, or

can be based on a concept, like childhood

memory, a historical event, or a diagram.