Adapting the grid
4
While it’s not a given that you’ll be producing your work digitally, it’s more than likely that you’ll be working with a design application such as InDesign or QuarkXPress. For some types of project Illustrator, or possibly Photoshop, may be a better choice, but anything that involves more than one page is probably achieved more easily with a specialist layout application. InDesign and QuarkXPress both use Master Pages to construct multiple-page documents, and each separate Master Page within a document can be set up with a different grid as required. If more than one type of grid is needed, the tendency is to set up a new Master Page for each, but there may be advantages in combining grids in order to reduce the number of Master Pages with which you have to deal.
1 Open the document containing the grid you constructed as part of Tutorial 3, and move any temporary boxes remaining from that exercise to a separate layer that can be hidden. As you’ve already placed horizontal guides to mark the vertical modules, the boxes are currently surplus to requirement—but don’t delete them as we’ll need them again later. Regardless of which application you’re using, navigate to the default Master Page for the document and drag guides in so they snap to all the existing column guides as shown below.
Now that you’ve marked these columns, you’re free to change the number of columns in the grid without losing the original five.
Copyright © RotoVision SA 2007
2 Open the Margins and Columns dialog [Layout >
Margins and Columns...] in InDesign or the Master Guides dialog [Page > Master Guides...] in QuarkXPress, and change the number of columns in the main grid to four, using a gutter measurement of 5.5mm (1⁄4in). This gives a neat column measure of 44mm (13⁄4in).
InDesign dialogue
QuarkXPress dialogue
The result of this simple exercise is a grid that offers a five-column, a fourcolumn, and a two-column grid if you use two of the four columns as a single measure. Used in various combinations, this provides a high level of flexibility when producing a layout, and would be particularly appropriate for a project such as an illustrated book, magazine, or brochure. One of the obvious advantages of using a combination of even and odd numbers of columns in a grid is the ability to use varying measures for different types of text. For example, the five-column grid could be split so that one column, perhaps the outermost on either page, is used for captions. The remaining four columns could be divided into two equal columns of text, or further subdivided by adding additional guides as required. As I mentioned at the end of the other tutorials, add as many divisions to your grid as you need, but do your best to avoid overengineering it. The example we’ve been working with could probably accommodate a few more additions, but to avoid overcomplication you should consider using additional master pages if your own grids need to be more complex than this example.
Copyright © RotoVision SA 2007
To kick-start your thoughts on how a grid like the one in this tutorial can be used, here are a few examples. The cyan boxes represent type, and the magenta boxes represent images. 3 This example uses the five columns in a fairly straightforward way. The running text is spread across a measure equal to two columns, with the remaining outside column reserved for caption material. Images can be sized across as many columns as you wish, but should fit within the vertical modules created in Tutorial 3.
4 A simple adaptation of the example above has created some dynamic spaces between columns of running text. By moving the captions to the central column of the five-column grid, you open up more possibilities for the sizing and positioning of images.
5 In this example, both the fourand five-column grids are utilized. The measure for the running text uses two columns from the fourcolumn grid, but the captions and small images use the five-column grid. When combining grids in this way, the trick is to retain a degree of similarity between gutters. The five-column gutter is slightly narrower, and is used for the rows of small images. The four-column gutter is used everywhere else to maintain visual consistency between adjacent text and images.
Copyright Š RotoVision SA 2007