Composition and layout

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The grid and why it exists

Lesson 8 of 27 in Composition and layout.

Josef Müller-Brockmann Lecture at RIT · Format
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A grid en.wikipedia.org is a structure of intersecting lines that content is hung on. Nobody is meant to see it. It is the thing behind the thing, and the whole point of the arrangement is that a reader takes in the order of a page without ever noticing the device that produced it. The modern typographic version came out of Switzerland after the Second World War, from designers including Max Bill, Emil Ruder and Josef Müller-Brockmann en.wikipedia.org, who were working through the arguments Jan Tschichold had made in Die neue Typographie. Müller-Brockmann's Grid Systems in Graphic Design, published by Niggli, carried it to everyone else.

12 columns · 8px gutterspans 5spans 6
A twelve-column grid with gutters, and a block spanning five columns.
A printed sheet, photographed framed behind glass. DIE AUSSTELLUNG 1923 runs across the top. Below it a five-row table sets red category headings (the school, the workshops, the building, painting and sculpture, the stage) beside paragraphs of justified German text on yellow, with a second red column of listings down the right-hand side.
An advertising sheet for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition. Red headings, a tight table and one sans-serif build a clear order with very few means.Advertising sheet for the Bauhaus exhibition, Weimar. Oskar Schlemmer, 1923.Wikimedia Commons/CC0 1.0
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  1. Question 1, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The block the content sits inside. Choosing it chooses the margins, because the margins are whatever is left.”

    • One idea
    • Apophenia
    • Type area
    • Figure
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “The smallest unit the grid counts in. Everything else is a multiple of it.”

    • Rule of thirds
    • Module
    • Ma
    • Fold

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