Some notes on Grid Systems in Graphic Design

A few notes from Josef Muller-Brockmann’s Grid Systems in Graphic Design

  • Grid divides 2D space into smaller fields. Fields may be the same or different in size.
  • Vertical distance between fields: at least 1 line of text.
  • Horizontal distance between fields depends on size of type and illustrations used.
  • The smallest illustration corresponds to the smallest grid field (???)
  • All illustrations, photos, stats, etc. have the size of 1, 2, 3, or 4 grid fields.
  • The fewer the differences in size of the illustrations, the quieter the impressed created by the design.
  • Standard typefaces listed in the book: Garamond, Caslon, Bakersville, Bedoni, Clarendon, Berthhold, Times, Helvetica, Univers.
  • Columns should be 10 words wide.
  • Margins of the same size never result in interesting design.
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    Comments (5)

    1. beans wrote:

      this is a very interesting post…conseidering how hard it is to get hold of a copy of the book. i wpld be very interested to see more extracts from the book if that is at all possible?

      regards

      Sunday, April 24, 2005 at 3:30 pm #
    2. Klintron wrote:

      I don’t have a copy of the book anymore, it was a inter-library exchange book. The notes were made for myself before I returned it. It’s a great book, but ridiculously expensive.

      Monday, April 25, 2005 at 12:09 am #
    3. Daniel wrote:

      I couldn’t understand some parts of this article , but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

      Monday, August 6, 2007 at 10:33 am #
    4. zane m. kolnik wrote:

      this is THE book to have best $80 you will ever spend

      Tuesday, August 28, 2007 at 10:41 pm #
    5. Miracle studios -- w wrote:

      Thanks alot for this post …

      Wednesday, June 18, 2008 at 1:45 am #