Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Grids and Page Layouts

12 Best Practices for Graphic Designers: Grids and Page Layouts

After more than forty years of designing in the modernist

tradition, Massimo Vignelli and the team at Vignelli

Associates have established themselves as experts in the

organization of information. Whether they are designing

for a book or for a direct mailer that folds out into

a poster, they use grids to tie together the content within

each project as well as link all of those projects under

their consistent, grid-based approach. Because the varia-

tions and types of grids that can be used are unlimited,

the ability to recognize the most appropriate structure for

the project and discard the others is a crucial step in the

design process that they have refined over a long career.

VIGNELLI ASSOCIATES

APPROACH TO

GRID-BASED DESIGN

CASE

STUDY

“THE CONTENT DETERMINES

THE CONTAINER—A BASIC TRUTH

IN BOOK DESIGN.”

—Massimo Vignelli, Vignelli Associates

Vignelli Associates: Approach to Grid-based Design 13

14 Best Practices for Graphic Designers: Grids and Page Layouts

RIGHT A 4 x 6 modular grid was

used to organize the content for the

book Richard Meier Vol. 5 so that

small diagrams, lengthy text, and big,

beautiful photographs could all be

communicated with consistency

and regularity.

FIRM Vignelli Associates

DESIGNERS Massimo Vignelli,

Beatriz Cifuentes

CLIENT Richard Meier &

Partners + Rizzoli

OPPOSITE PAGE These sketches

show the storyboarding step of the

process that allows the designers

to step back and look at the flow of

the information to observe how the

pages will be viewed as readers flip

through the book.

FIRM Vignelli Associates

CLIENT Rizzoli International

Vignelli Associates: Approach to Grid-based Design 15

16 Best Practices for Graphic Designers: Grids and Page Layouts

“IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER

THAT MANY DEVICES ARE

AVAILABLE TO MAKE LAYOUTS

EXCITING. THE PURPOSE

OF THE GRID IS TO PROVIDE

CONSISTENCY TO THE LAYOUTS,

BUT NOT NECESSARILY

EXCITEMENT—WHICH WILL BE

PROVIDED BY THE SUM OF ALL

THE ELEMENTS IN THE DESIGN.”

—Massimo Vignelli, Vignelli Associates