Grid Systems in Graphic Design

Josef Müller-Brockmann

You should judge a design book by its cover. If a book claims to know how to present, then it needs to present. So at first glance, this one doesn’t look much good. A background of Dutch orange with a mesh of fine white lines on which the title has been set in a sans-serif font. Perhaps it’s handsome in a spare way, but there is no great image or pithy review to draw the reader in. No clue as to why, at 37 years old, and on a niche subject, it has been reprinted ten times. If the cover isn’t compelling, it is informative. Those white lines illustrate the book’s argument: aligning images and text to a grid of pleasing geometry gives a page a pleasing form. What’s more, with this guide, gives the designer: … the will systemizeito clarifyrify the will to penetrate to the essentials, to concentrate … the will to rationalize the creative and technical production process … In...