A grid is a promise to the reader that the next page will behave like the last one.
We draw the grid before the identity, because the grid is what people experience — the mark is what they remember. A twelve-column base with a six-column editorial variant handles almost everything we make.
Where grids go wrong
The grid also decides the photography. Once you know the slots, you know the crops, and the brief for the shoot writes itself.
- Too many columns for the content.
- Gutters that do not scale with the type.
- Breaking the grid for emphasis so often it stops being emphasis.
Constraint is the beginning of style.
Studio note
In practice
We keep a running document of these decisions for every client, so the next designer — in-house or external — inherits reasons, not just files.
