Best Practices for Graphic Designers, Grids and Page Layouts

Vignelli Associates: Approach to Grid-based Design 17

When thinking about a book design, the team at

Vignelli Associates first determines the size of the book

based on the content, to ensure that the grid system

used to organize the content will provide structure and

continuity from cover to cover without obscuring

the content. For example, square pictures tend to work

better in a square book format to best exhibit the

content without cropping images.

After finessing the storyboard and

getting the layout just right, the

designers build each spread using the

storyboard as a guide. Following the

sketches as closely as possible so as

not to negate the work already done

establishes the cinematic flow of the

piece as a whole.

FIRM Vignelli Associates

CLIENT Rizzoli International

18 Best Practices for Graphic Designers: Grids and Page Layouts

From content to grid to sketch to

finished book, this process has

been refined by the team at Vignelli

Associates over decades and is an

approach to grid-based design with

proven results.

FIRM Vignelli Associates

CLIENT Knoll

Vignelli Associates: Approach to Grid-based Design 19

Another essential step is determining the sequence of

the layouts. This is a very important phase of the team’s

process when looking at books, magazines, and tabloids

as cinematic objects—composed simultaneously of static

pages and the experience of a sequence of pages. Rather

than determining this organically as they go, they build

tight sketches of each spread into a storyboard so that

they can easily view them together and individually

as well as change them until the pacing and flow feel

correct. This then becomes the map that guides and

informs the rest of the process.

The timeless clarity of the design to emerge from

Vignelli Associates over the years is a testament to the

designers’ philosophy that a design whose structure is

invisible to the viewer is stronger than an illustrative or

narrative layout where the structure is at the forefront

of the design. A neutral, systematic approach to layout

aided by an unobtrusive grid and subtly articulated

design sensibilities have positioned Vignelli Associates as

masters of information organization.