Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop

Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
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Manufacturer: Rockport Publishers
Average Customer Rating: Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 686.225
EAN: 9781592531257
ISBN: 1592531253
Label: Rockport Publishers
Manufacturer: Rockport Publishers
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: 2005-05-01
Publisher: Rockport Publishers
Studio: Rockport Publishers
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Editorial Reviews:
For designers working in every medium, layout is arguable the most basic and most important element. Effective layout is essential to communication and enables the end user to not only be drawn in with an innovative design but to digest information easily.

Making and Breaking the Grid is a comprehensive layout design workshop that assumes that to effectively break the rules of grid-based design one must first understand those rules and see them applied to real-world projects.

Text reveals top designers' work in process and rationale. Projects with similar characteristics are linked through a simple notational system that encourages exploration and comparison of structure ideas. Also included are historical overviews that summarize the development of layout concepts, both grid-based and non-grid based, in modern design practice.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: A treat for the eye and the mind
Comment: Wow. This is a visual treat. Your are introduced to "the grid" in graphic design and then simultaneously are shown lots of examples that violate the grid principle. The strength of this book is the examples, because you are given multiple pages for each design, which allows you to sense the designers' approach. It is a visual delight and breathtaking. You will find examples you love and hate and will be all the more inspired. A delight for the eye and mind!
Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
Comment: This book excellent for graphic designers and anyone who needs to create professional appealing graphic layouts. As an interior designer, I purchased this book to help me design my portfolio and will continue to resource it for project presentation layouts. The visual breakdowns are inspirational; and the text, informative.
Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Great book for designers
Comment: It has a lot of examples and explanations of grid and grid-related layouts.
A good reference guide for designers, whether they are students ore professionals.
Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: essential structure
Comment: You may think this book is a little dry, but it is really essential to learn how to use and when you can violate the grid when creating layouts for print or web projects. A must have for any student in graphic design. Also try Kimberly Elam's "Grid Systems" book if you need additional resources.
Customer Rating: Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5
Summary: The big book of clarity and chaos
Comment: What a strange publication. Divided into two sections the first explaining grid formatting with actual printed material and the second revealing how to design print without a grid.

There seems a contradiction here because the grid, used intelligently, will allow a whole range of graphic options to be presented with clarity. Some of the print examples reproduced in the first section do show this with perhaps the most useful item a grid thumbnail for each piece, unfortunately I thought it was rather too small on each spread despite being the key to explaining each format. From past experience, designing magazines, I would start work on a grid by concentrating on the text type size because it is the least flexible of all the elements on the page. This point really wasn't made enough of in the book's chapter: Grid Basics.

The reproductions show a reasonable range of design solutions, essentially print though there is an example of corporate signage. Missing are magazines (consumer or trade) timetables and the like. Without a grid this type of printed matter really wouldn't exist.

The book's contradiction, to my mind, start with the second section: 'Grid Deconstructions and Non-Grid-Based Design Projects'. The forty items shown seem to have a couple of common threads: their design is essentially arbitrary which makes them look very messy and frequently their typography (display and text) is used as a design element which makes the words unreadable. Their design is the opposite of grid stimulated creativity, in other words visual chaos.

Some of the examples are quite amazing. On page 180-181 twelve pages of a calendar are shown, totally useless as its impossible to see the days and dates. Pages 188-189 show eight spreads from a design school journal showing irregular shaped blocks of text creating a sort of collage. I doubt anyone made the effort to read any of it. What is interesting about this second section material is that so much of it comes from educational establishments. In the real world all this designer whimsy would be rejected by the client on sight of the first dummy

'Making and Breaking the Grid' is well printed with 175dpi and the layout is adequate and for a book about grids you would have thought its own grid would have been included but it is strangely missing. Overall I felt that because the contents present two opposite design ideals the book's editorial concept is rather flawed.

From my experience there is only one book that really explains it all: Muller-Brockmann's Grid Systems in Graphic Design (go to the book's site to see some spreads I've uploaded) published in Switzerland and full of good solid, practical, hands-on information. This book's only purpose is creative clarity.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

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