The Grid - Lindsey Laibinis

Reading pages 1-30 of Making and Breaking the Grid helped me out in learning the basics of the grid and gave me some background history about it. The reading covered the history of the grid's development talking about the Industrial Revolution in England, the English Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris, Arthur Mackmurdo and Sir Emery Walker, and a lot more. It also talked briefly about some art movements such as Constructivism, the Bauhaus and The New Order, and the International Style. A lot of this historical background was a great refresher for me personally.

The reading then went into the grid starting with the basics. It stated that the benefits of working with a grid were clarity, efficiency, economy, and continuity. The grid basically gives systematic order to a layout. It then went into the grid anatomy. This was a nice review of what I learned in Type I, which talked about all the parts of a the grid including columns, modules, margins, flow lines, spatial zones, and markers.

Finally it covered the four main types of grids: the manuscript grid, column grid, modular grid, and hierarchical grid. The manuscript grid (or the block grid) is structurally the simplest kind of grid. It is used to accommodate extensive continuous text such as for a book or long essay. It's base structure is a large rectangular area. The column grid benefits for information that is discontinuous. It's a very flexible type of grid. This type of grid is common in editorial layout. The modular grid is most often used to coordinate extensive publication systems. It is used for tabular information such as charts, forms, schedules, and navigation systems. Lastly, the hierarchical grid is mainly used in web pages. It has an almost organic approach to the way information and elements are ordered. 

For my example of a grid, I chose a magazine called Preen that I got a couple years ago. It's the Spring 2008 issue. Lilly McElroy, the editor in chief describes the magazines as follows, "Preen is a fashion arts, lifestyle quarterly magazine for the young independent woman that has a curatorial eye for the world around her." So I would definitely agree that this magazine is targeted for young women interested in fashion.

This entire magazine is visually interesting throughout all of the pages. I love how each page is completely different from the next in both grid layouts and imagery. 

This particular spread caught my eye because of how the information is laid out. The main text uses a serif typeface that seems to be Times New Roman, Garamond, or something similar. As for the numbers, they're obviously set in a larger text size and may be bold. My first guess is that this spread is utilizing a modular grid. I know that most editorial layouts use a column grid, but this to me looks more like a modular grid. It looks more like a scrapbook presentation (which I remember reading about under modular grids in the book). I feel like the bodies of text represent the modules. 

The spread above utilizes a multi-column grid. You can clearly distinguish the vertical columns. The type used for the title of the article seems to be a Transitional Serif typeface that looks like Adobe Caslon Pro or something similar. I think it's a perfect fit to accentuate the word 'Flying' since it has that flowy and whimsical feel to it.


It was inspiring to pick this magazine back up and see how lovely all the spreads were. I would love to for my exhibition catalogue to create something as clean and unique as this magazine. Even though I have a more playful topic (Zelda), I think I can take the things I saw into consideration and still create something fun and playful but still keep it clean and appealing to the viewer.