The Grid

The Grid. The nemesis of all Graphic Design students. The simple but not so simple rule waiting to be broken. I have decided to write this blog because of several reasons - first one is that I am constantly reminded by my tutors how important it is to use a grid, second is that although I am aware of the basic rules, I haven't managed yet to tight them properly together and understand fully enough so I am in a desperate need of some research. And third is that eventually, this might help some other student who is in the same situation.

So let's start from the very basic. A grid are horizontal and vertical lines that are going all across your picture. It is a structure that helps designers to organize elements on their layouts according to what is the most pleasant position to the eye, mainly according to the rule of thirds (and I thought I will get rid of geometry if I study Art, hah). A very simple grid is shown below:

Because most designers tend to work with grids using the help of technology (much much easier then to precisely use to ruler every time you need it BUT you could also use a tracing paper), some might think that the grid is a modern invention. Yet, several forms of grid have been around for a long time, some sources claiming that it started being used properly in the 14th century. The main grid that is mentioned from that period of time is called the Villard's diagram and again, is based on the rule of thirds. It looks like this:

Just in case you would not be familiar with this rule - it is a guideline used by photographers, designers and artists that divides an image into 9 squares (two horizontal lines and two vertical). The rule says that your main composition and objects of interest should be always placed into the point where those lines meet. It might be hard to imagine so I am going to borrow a very useful animation from Wikipedia to give you an idea:

As you can see, the horizon is placed on one of the lines and the tree, the main object that catches the observer's eye is placed at the cross. This point is sometimes called the crash point or the power point.

 Asymmetry as a central tenet of modernism

But back to the history. There is another form of grid that is used predominantly in book design and that was popularized by a famous typographer Jan Tschichold which is called Van de Graff system. It is a system based on Gutenberg's and other medieval book maker's principles to make the certain page the most comforting and legible for reading.

And this is how it is created:

The most information and understanding of this I gain from a brilliant article on 99 Designs. They are also recommending to learn couple of terms that are used with grid structure:

Gutter: the space between columns of text

Column inch: a reference to the vertical length of a column of text

Jump: the continuation of a flow of text from the bottom of one column to the top of another, or onto another page

Rail: a thinner column (typically about half the width of the other columns) at the far left or far right of a page, typically providing directory information for, say, a newspaper.

Hang line: like a horizontal rail, this is a line that separates information at the top of a page (such as an image, for example), from the text below, which seems to “hang” from the line

Single column grid: such as what you would find in a typical book

Multi-column (vertical) grid: such as what you would find in a typical newspaper

Modular grid: a grid that involves about as many horizontal divisions as it does vertical ones, making for an especially flexible model of text and image arrangement

In 1919 the Bauhaus movement started in Germany and kept on going until 1933. It was based on the principle to get rid of all decorative elements and focus mainly on the function.

In the 20th century, the grid had become everything. Triggered by Swiss design which had the chance to evolve properly during the war period as Switzerland was a neutral country, even artist start to take everything down to the most pure and abstract form, some of them (Piere Mondrain in this case) even showed the grid itself combined with the colour theory. The main thought of it is the fact that grid was observed not only as a utility but as a form of beauty as well.

To anyone who would like to explore even more about the History of the grid I recommend this article and this article as I have found out many useful information in there.

Considering the actual modern use of the grid. When designing a page it is always useful to work out your layout before actually putting it into the Photoshop via sketching it on paper first. The best thing is to use tracing paper - that way you can move your elements easily and play with options.

There are several types of grid, each one is more suitable for something else and in the end it always depends on your content which one you should use so that's why there are no exact rules to this. But we can still look at the options.

1. Single column grid:
Exactly as it sounds a single column grid is one column of text (image) lies on the page. It is used mainly in book & magazine design. Here is an example of single column grid borrowed from Thinking with type. I am going to use their images to demonstrate what am I talking about as they are the most appropriate and the easiest to understand. When using one column grid on a double page, it is always important to remember that there are two pages facing each other and not design each one separately. That way one can avoid having different outside and inside margins and is also able to get the sense of how the pages respond to each other when viewed by the reader.

2. Multi column grid:

Multi column grid is a type of layout where your text and images are spread into several different lines. There is no limitation to the count of those lines, nevertheless the most common ones are 3 column grids or 5 columns. The general rule is that your publication should stick to the same grid structure (unless there is a reason to not do so) and it should definitely stick to the same grid on each spread. It prevents the piece from looking messy and confusing as the unity is comforting for the viewer's eye. Generally, this type of grid is more useful for publication that include images which (and that is also important) does not necessarily have to stick to one column (as it is shown with the image on the right side). Also, not all of the columns have to be filled with space, it is more pleasing to the eye to leave some negative space so the page doesn't look too crowded and too heavy.

3. Hang Line and The Modular Grid

Hang line is a horizontal line that is coming through your columns. There can be one or there can be multiple of them, the possibilities are endless. As Thinkingwithtype states, the hang line can help you reserve some space for images. The text then 'hangs' down from them.

When there is more than one hang line, this type of grid is called modular. This type of grid was used and explored mainly by Swiss designers in the 1960s. Here is an example:

Those are examples of the main types of grids and here is some of my favourite usage of them:

Pick Me Up Graphics Art festival

In terms of Graphic Design and Art festivals, London is certainly of the best places to be. With its London Art Fair, Serpentine Gallery pavilions, The London Design Festival and Pick Me Up it is the city of never-ending possibilities and inspiration. I strongly recommend following all of those on social media (preferably Twitter) to not miss anything or another tip is to follow Eye Magazine's events on this address: http://www.eyemagazine.com/events.

PICK ME UP

Dates:  23 April – 4 May 2015
Open: Daily 10am-6pm, late night Wednesdays & Thursdays until 10pm
Address:  Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 1LA
Admission: £10, concessions £8, Festival pass £17.50

It is now the #6th year of Pick Me Up festival that connects all the young designers and illustrators under the roof of Somerset house.

The queue that I have had to go through made me realize how popular Graphic Design and Illustration have become over the past years and it was both terrifying (in terms of competition) and exciting (in terms of appreciation) to see interactions of artists and visitors. The whole event consists from an exhibition on the lower floor and workshops and talks on the upper floor.

My first steps lead me upstairs, so I have been browsing around little, slightly overpriced, shops of which some had truly amazing pieces of design. My favourite one were tarot cards with different typography on each one of them.

 But otherwise, I was a bit disappointed. Yes, there was loads of cats for cat lovers, loads of 'hipster design' with deers, foxes and triangles but this all had lost its excitement for me. On the other hand, I understand that if a small company wants to push through and make a name, it simply has to satisfy the demand of the market and I have to say, there was a lot of people around all the cashier's stools.

I don't want to complain too much though and I have to admit, there was certainly a part that I have enjoyed very much which was the workshops. There was a huge variety of them, you had an option to take a photo of yourself and then adjust it with colourful pens and scratches, lots of printmaking combined with typography workshops and also one that I have spent the most time playing with - scratch art. A workshop surrounded by black walls with a table in the middle and people peaking behind the shoulders of the ones sitting at it was called #blickscratchart and provided the possibility to take a piece of black paper and a plastic stick with a sharp end. As you were scratching the black bit off, the colours of rainbow appeared, giving your message a very funky and eye catching mood. I did have a go with my logo:

When I tried to find out about the technique used on this paper, I was told that the studio simply bought those scratch papers on Amazon which was a slight disappointment. They also told me thought that it is possible to make at home - simply just take wax crayons and paint your base layer and then paint with black acrylic over them.

One last photo from the upstairs is a print by Pocko that actually made me giggle out loud.

 The downstairs exhibition was quite small nevertheless there were some interesting things to look at. The only thing I have lacked was the consistency, something that would bond those pieces together. There was an example of beautiful 3D printed dinosaur figures by Jack Cunningham...

...papercraft by Hattie Newman...

 ...sketches by Zoe Taylor...

and probably the most memorable and striking illustration by French artist Thomas Lamadieu.

All in all, it was great to see what is trendy and new at the moment and get some new inspiration. I am also thinking about attending one of the talks as there was none going on at the time of my visit.

Michael Bierut

Michael Bierut is an American Graphic Designer, a member of AIGA and Pentagram who's work is predominantly typographic. Even though when you Google his name and the work he's done it is predominantly black and white and also typographic, it still manages to be absolutely striking, playful and clever at the same time. Let me show you what I mean...

Bierut was born in 1957 and as many of other Designers he started with album covers. He studied graphic design at the University of Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning and since 1990 he is the member of Pentagram where 'is responsible for leading a team of graphic designers who create identity design, environmental graphic design and editorial design solutions'. He posses several Graphic Design awards and is a regular contributor to the Design Observer Magazine (which includes other famous figures, ie. Rick Poynor). After finishing his studies, Bierut was lucky and competent enough to get a job at Vignelli Associates which is an Italian Design company found by Massimo and Lella Vignelli. They are both very good designers themselves and their work includes cooperation with American Airlines, Bloomingdale's, IBM or redesigning New York Subway City map about which Bierut himself said: 'It seemed to me that the whole city of New York was a permanent Vignelli exhibition. To get to the office, I rode in a subway with Vignelli-designed signage, shared the sidewalk with people holding Vignelli-designed Bloomingdale’s shopping bags, walked by St. Peter’s Church with its Vignelli-designed pipe organ visible through the window. At Vignelli Associates, at 23 years old, I felt I was at the center of the universe.'
Massimo Vignelli died last year in May but before that, he published the Vignelli Cannon (also as a free e-book here which he described as his legacy dedicated to young designers).

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 While researching more about mr. Bierut, I have stumbled across a video that perfectly explains why is he one of the best designers. The video can be found here - it is called 5 Rules form 56 Notebooks. Below this text, you can see the five principles that he talks about summarized into rules.

As you can see, they are all slightly different than everything you'll hear at Design schools but they all make sense. Also, I still think that kindness of a human being is one of the most important things and I absolutely adore that Michael Bierut never forgets this. 

Last thing that I would recommend is taking a look on Bierut's portfolio, both the current and the old one. To see the progress and to know that even the most famous designer had to start somewhere is amazing and definitely very motivating. 

Typography and Printing Part I.: History

Because of the lack of knowledge I have in the field of typography and printing and also because recently I have been given a big project that is typography-based I have decided to write one blog only about this topic.

Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language readable and beautiful.  The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point size, line length, line-spacing (leading), letter-spacing (tracking), and adjusting the space within letters pairs (kerning).

Printing is a process for reproducing text and images using a master form or template.

 

As we have covered most of the ancient civilization typography in our lectures, to anyone who did not attend them I recommend to read this article - http://ilovetypography.com/2010/08/07/where-does-the-alphabet-come-from/ as it is very detailed and covers a lot of this topic.
 
The word typography comes from the Greek typos "form" and γράφειν graphein "to write". One of the first printing techniques was using wooden blocks with letters / symbols carved into them and then pressed against a certain material, the earliest examples of this technique come from China, around 220 B.C.
The first main printing revolution in Europe came with the invention of printing press in 1450 by mr. Gutenberg and his first printed book - The Gutenberg's bible. This invention was so revolutionary mainly because suddenly the production of text was so affordable and easy to do that books became approachable by almost anyone. The lead based alloy principle was so successful that it is still used nowadays. Thanks to this, artist that were painting books by hand became designers who were thinking more about the position of the text, its readability and positioning. It also allowed them to invent new letter forms and typefaces.

Movable type was already invented in China by By Sheng around the 10th century but it involved porcelain and clay and was not highly usable. Gutenberg was the first one to invent 'movable type' in Europe. It is 'a process of setting type by hand for printing on a letterpress machine. The type can be made of either wood or metal and letters were cut individually by craftsmen called punch cutters. This style of printing was the first developed that could rapidly, a relative term, produce multiple copies of lengthy printed materials and books. It remained the standard printing technique until photo typesetting came about in the 1950s'.

We tend to think about Graphic Design as a fairly new field of study and also, we tend to think it is mainly digital but this particular age in our history is proof that it is not like that at all. Main designer of this age, after Gutenberg's invention and also his student was Nicholas Jenson, based in Venice in the age of what could be called The Printing / Typographic Italian Renessaince. He was the inventor of the first Roman Type (see left, it is the actual Jenson's type) and who also become a legendary figure between the designers of the 19th century.

Eventually, Jenson ended up producing more than 150 titles and inventing few other letter forms including Greek style one and a black-type one (Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 to well into the 17th century, see below - that is not the actual Jenson's type).
I also find absolutely beautiful that Jenson had his own typographic mark (that you can also see on the right).


Another important figure of this time was Aldus Manutius who was the inventor of the italic type, the inventor of the modern use of the semicolon (;) and also the developer of the modern look of comma (,). And that is still not all of it. Manutius was a big fan of books and literature in general which lead him to inventing pocket edition of book that were being printed. He was an admirer of Greek and Latin classics and therefore his main task was to make sure those were printed in multiples and could be accessed by everyone who wanted to. In 1501, Aldus began to use, as his publisher's device, the image of a dolphin wrapped around an anchor. His editions of the classics were so highly respected that almost immediately the dolphin-and-anchor device was pirated by French and Italian publishers.

 The Italian renessaince progressively moved to France where one of the main figures in this field was Claude Garamond who was a publisher and a punch cutter and also the first one to make a business out of printing as a service for others. One of the modern fonts that we still use and that carries his name was heavily influenced by him.

Another important 18th century French punch cutter and typefounder was Pierre Simon Fournier. One of his contributions to typography was the development of ornaments and decorative features but his main accomplishment is that he ‘created a standardized measuring system that would revolutionize the typography industry forever’. The reason that lead him to do this was the fact that in the 1723 the French government decided that all letters have to be subjects to standards. During his life, Fournier also developed an interest in music and when he combined those two passions, it lead to him developeding a new musical typestyle that made the notes round, more elegant, and easier to read.

The 18th century was a golden age for typographers, even the Italian ones. There was Giambattista Bodoni who took Fournier as his example but lately, his admiration was focused more on John Baskerville and William Caslon. He and Firmin Didot evolved a style of type called 'New Face', in which the letters are cut in such a way as to produce a strong contrast between the thick and thin parts of their body. Bodoni designed many type-faces, each one in a large range of type sizes. There are modern versions of his typefaces that are carrying his name.

 William Calson was an English gunsmith and a designer of typefaces. His typefaces took  inspiration of the Dutch Baroque and also inspired John Baskerville. Caslon typefaces were immediately popular and used for many important printed works, including the first printed version of the United States Declaration of Independence. In fact, they have became so popular that the expression about typeface choice, "when in doubt, use Caslon," came about.

 Last one of the early typographers was John Baskerville. While being a member of the Royal Society of Arts, he has designed many typefaces along with his punchcutter John Handy. He cooperated with The University of Cambridge and also published a big edition of The Bible. His typefaces were greatly admired by Benjamin Franklin, a printer and fellow member of the Royal Society of Arts, who took the designs back to the newly created United States, where they were adopted for most federal government publishing. More recently, Emigre (states for Emgire magazine that I was talking about in the previous article) modernized his version of Baskerville and gave it a name Mrs Eaves - which as John Baskerville's wife.

 I thank very much for help with this article to: http://designishistory.com, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typography

Graffiti design

It is not true to say that I have never come across anyone who would be a part of a graffiti community but I have certainly managed to avoid getting involved in any way and trying it myself. Until I came to New York. Long story short, I have found myself sitting in a flat surrounded by graffiti artist and one of them, finding out that I am a student of Graphic Design, said:

'As a Graphic Designer you will have to start looking at and getting into graffiti at some point. Whether it's going to be out of curiosity and research or a proper involvement, it is inevitable.'

The passion and certainty in his voice triggered my interest and therefore I have decided to write this article about the relationship between Graphic Design and Graffiti.

 (design by Dufranne Thomas)

Graffiti artists and Graphic Designers share some similarities. You can see them doodling in their sketchbooks pretty much 24/7. They are both fans of typography (although designers more in the scientific way instead of the more instinctive one in case of graffiti tags) and bold colours. Both of them are trying to have adrenalin and dynamic nature included in their work and they all experiment with cut outs, collages, printing and spray paints. Yet at the same time they are very far from each other considering their social status.

Graffiti is still persecuted and not accepted by a wide range of society, is still considered being a crime activity. If a graffiti artist would put their work on a poster that he would then stick on a wall, would he become a graphic designer? Quite frankly, I believe so. But that is the beauty, the danger of graffiti that it is out there, whether it is appropriate or not.

For my research (because there is not many actual studies on this topic) I have looked up websites of several Graphic Designers who used to be / are Graffiti artists as well. From what I have seen so far, in most cases, we can see the influence of patterns and perspective in most of them. One of the best websites that clearly showed me the progress of the artist was http://www.neckcns.com which is a website of a German based artist who says: 

'I found that graffiti had become my main interest, so I studied communicational design as a consequence and ended up being a fulltime designer. The result? My graffiti art looks like done by a designer, and my designs definitely still have that graffiti feeling to them. '

Below, there is an example of his work that clearly shows that he there is truth in his words:

Or if you prefer to watch videos, there is a short document called 'From Graffiti Artist to a Graphic Designer' that is definitely worth watching as well. It is aboutMexico City based artist called SEHER who cooperated with companies like BOOM or FUNKO and show his life journey and progress.

I also mentioned the passion for typography in the beginning and while learning about that I have stumbled across an article that has used graffiti influence to push the boundaries of letter design. It claims that something as common as letter forms which we perceive pretty much since we are born can still be done in a different, more intruding way. Here is an example and a link to the whole website.

All in all, I am glad my friend introduced me to the world of graffiti and I will try to go as deep as I can to this culture. Cause by any means, creating tags of your names is in the end.. just a massive fun, right?