nyone who is an experienced graphic designer knows how important designing with a grid is. You can create a visual and structural balance within your design using a grid system. Basically designing with a grid is a way of organizing content on a page, using any combination of margins, guides, rows and columns. It has been used for years in newspaper and magazine layouts with columns of text and images and is now commonly used in web design. You can use a combination of grids throughout an entire project to achieve a consistent look and feel. Designing with a solid grid structure will help in creating successful design layouts in both print and web design.

There is no limit to the layout options using a grid system. Grids can range from 3 columns to 16 columns to 24 columns or more. All depending on the framework you are working with for your design. These building blocks, the variation of column widths, borders, page size and other features of the grid will lead to unique page design. Using a grid system will help to position the elements of your design on the page. Once the grid is established, it is up to the designer to decide when and how to break out of it. This doesn’t mean the grid system will be ignored, but elements may cross over from column to column, extend to the end of the page, or extend onto adjacent pages. Breaking out of the grid can lead to the most interesting page designs.

I have found many great resources, blogs and sites related to the Grid System in design. Below are a few of the top links with more detail information about the grid system and using it in graphic and web design.

Reference Links for Grid System in Design

www.thegridsystem.org

960px-grid-templates

www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/04/14/designing-with-grid-based-approach

five-simple-steps-to-designing-grid-systems-part-1

960.gs

gridness.net

he art of spacing your type is know as kerning and also tracking. In typesetting, the process of subtracting space between specific pairs of characters so that the overall letterspacing appears to be even is KERNING. Where the overall tightness or looseness of the spacing between all characters in a line or block of text is known as TRACKING. Although allot of designers only use the term KERNING when adjusting type is their designs. Anyone who works with letters extensively knows that good spacing is often more important than good letters. In “Lettering as a Work of Art”, the essay that prefaces Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering (1966 but originally Meisterbuch der Schrift, 1952), Jan Tschichold says, “Good lettering demands three things:

(1) Good letters.

A beautiful letterform must be selected which is appropriate to the purpose it is to serve and to the lettering technique to be used.

(2) Good design in all details.

This calls for well balanced and sensitive letter spacing and word spacing, which takes the letter spacing into account.

(3) A good layout.

A harmonious and logical arrangement of lines is essential.

But, as Tschichold shows, the letters of the Roman alphabet pose problems for anyone hoping to achieve such perfection. They are not only variable structurally but they differ greatly from style to style, from typeface to typeface. Thus, there are letter combinations that are inherently awkward if not fiendishly difficult to space properly. Especially in metal type where letters are constrained by their bodies. But this age-old limitation disappeared years ago with the advent of phototype and its successor digital type. Today, the only restriction on good spacing in type is the design of the letter itself.

Whereas handletterers can alter and manipulate individual letters to improve the spacing of a word or line designers working with type have to make do with forms they are given—unless they want to become like Herb Lubalin and his colleagues, subtly cutting off parts of letters, redrawing them, butting letters together and doing whatever it took to achieve good spacing, even in an era that stressed “tight but not touching” spacing.

However, what Lubalin would have considered good spacing would not have passed muster with Tschichold since his work focused on the space between letters not a balance between that and counters. The difference between Tschichold and Lubalin is that the former’s view of good letterspacing was influenced by calligraphy and book typography and the latter’s was determined by the demands of advertising design. For text typography the balance between inner and outer space is essential to achieving an even color to a page of text which, in turn, makes the experience of reading smoother. Although Tschichold addressed lettering for display in Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering, his notion of display was colored by classical inscriptions on monuments and architecture. Lubalin accepted holes created by counters in his work because he was more interested in the massing of text to provide a visual punch that would attract viewers and turn them into readers. The holes created patterns that enlivened the headlines or short blocks of text found in advertising and graphic design. Lubalin’s design philosophy did not translate well to books and other lengthy texts, but it worked well for advertisements, posters, book jackets and packaging.

Now that we have covered the discussion of different philosophies of letterspacing, it’s time to have some fun. KernType is a game to practice your kerning that Mark MacKay, an interaction designer, has created for Method of Action, a company that says it is devoted to “peer-to-peer education for people who want to get things done”. KernType is apparently part of their online course Design for Programmers.

It took me a little time before I got the hang of KernType. It’s a cool idea for typography students and others to learn about good letterspacing, but it does need some work. While some of its solution are open for debate, there needs to be explanations for the solutions and what constitutes good type and letterspacing. KernType is still a fun an interesting idea to explore.

Try It Out Yourself

KERNTYPE a kerning game