“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
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a. b.
c. d.
All design work involves problem solving on both visual and organizational levels.
Pictures Text Headlines Tabular Data
All must come together to communicate
Anatomy of a Grid
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4.
The benefits of working with a grid are simple: Clarity Efficiency Economy Continuity It introduces systematic order to layout, helps distinguish between various types of information, and eases a user’s navigation through them.
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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.
b.
c.
Grid with a large number of precise intervals maybe developed as a basis for a variety of grids to be used. Use two, three, or more different grids that share outer margins, allowing them to be relatively arbitrary in their relationship to each other. 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
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seeing the inherent visual relationships and contrasts within the material and making connections for the viewer based on those relationships
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making quick decisions as the material is put together and the relationships are first seen
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derive visual idea from the context and impose it on the page format as kind of arbitrary structure
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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.