Reddit Reddit reviews Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type (Design Briefs)

We found 14 Reddit comments about Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type (Design Briefs). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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14 Reddit comments about Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type (Design Briefs):

u/timbojimbo · 6 pointsr/Design

I have compiled a reading list to be read in order just for this question.

I strongly believe that these books will make you better than 90% of designers out there.

Level One

Start with Thinking with Type it is a really good introduction to all things graphic design. It focuses a lot on typography and it is really basic. I

Next is Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type This book takes what you learned in Thinking with Type and allows you to develope it further in a grid based system. Its good, basic, and has exercises for you to do to play with composition.

Third on the list is Graphic Design: The New Basics It will take what you learned in Thinking with Type and Grid Systems and open them up a little. You learn about design elements other than just type like scale, rhythm and contrast. It really good, and has some projects to do.

Level 2

Now You can get into more "advanced" stuff. There are a lot of books that can go here, but Ill recommend some of my favorites. Its not as important to do this section in order.

Grid Systems in Graphic Design is the bible when it comes to grids. Its german and dry as fuck, but it is basically awesome. Its expensive, but worth every single penny.

Elements of Typographic Style Not alot about grids in here, but it tells you every insane crazy thing that typographers do when they massage text.

You can look at other designers work too. Heres a list of designers I like a lot:

Stefan Sagmeister

Paul Rand

Massimo Vignelli

James Victore

Paul Sahre

Wolfgang Weinhart

Paula Scher

Tibor Kalman

Most of these designers also have books out about their life and work.

Get a sketchbook and play around in it. Draw, collage, glue bubblegum wrappers in there. Just make it a diary of your visual life.

You could also get into Visual Theory here:
Norman Bryson has a book on still lifes that awesome
JWT Mitchell's What do pictures want is great

After this, its just a matter of making a lot of really bad shit and eventually its just a little less worse and maybe one day it might be good.

Ive got more, but that should keep you busy for a year or two.

u/pixelgarbage · 3 pointsr/graphic_design
  1. Illustrator is a very useful tool, it would serve you well to know how to use it. Illustrator also uses a very similar skill set to other applications you will end up using like indesign for example.

  2. No not at all, I think people love to complain no matter what industry they are in. However it is very competitive, there are plenty of very very successful designers out there and lots of really unsuccessful ones. No where is it more immediately obvious how "good" or "bad" you are at something than with a visual portfolio, people can see at a glance exactly how competent you are, that's pretty intimidating. For instance you might be able to escape notice as a mediocre insurance claims adjuster for much longer than a mediocre designer. If you can find a handful of solid clients and build good relationships with them it can go a very long way to having a long and comfortable career.

  3. Pay varies dramatically and theres a reason that very few people can give you a straight answer, your dealing with at least 3 variables at any given time if not more. What you are worth, what your client is worth and what the client is asking you to do. So for instance if your doing a multi million dollar marketing campaign and rebranding of a huge corporation while sitting in your manhattan office expect to be paid a little differently than if you are doing the CD cover for your friends band (that they recorded in garageband), the skill set, stakes and experience are dramatically different in those scenarios.

    Graphic design is everywhere and at all levels, expect to be paid accordingly. Understand too that $1000 for a logo is completely relative and doesn't by any means reflect the work that goes into it. You may have a someone who whips something together in a few minutes or have a team of designers slaving away iterating on an identity for weeks to make sure it's perfect, to make sure it becomes a household/highly recognizable piece of branding.

  4. One of the toughest and most technically challenging things I feel like you will have to deal with is typography. Having a good understanding of how to wield it's awesome power can go a very very long way. I think as far as learning your tools goes, for me at least the internet has been a far more valuable resource than any book, if you need a problem solved google can do that pretty quickly, theres also a ton of good tutorials or articles on design process out there, I have yet to see any books that come close.
    Now on the typography I can make a few suggestions, some of these are pretty dry and not so flashy but have very solid fundamentals in them. If you go to art school (and I highly suggest you do if you can afford it, it can be a phenomenal experience) then these are the kind of books you will be reading in the first year or two.

    Typographic Systems of Design ~Kim Elam

    Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type ~Kim Elam

    Thinking with Type ~Ellen Lupton

    Elements of Typography ~Robert Bringhurst

  5. I started doing some design work and drawing in high school. Both my parents are designers so I'm sure that helped, from there I went and got a BFA in illustration. While my first love is drawing and most of my work is illustration I still end up doing lot's of design work because it is (in my experience at least) very frequently in demand.

    Hope that was helpful and I'm sure lots of other people have had very different experiences and will share their stories and opinions. It's a very diverse field.
u/dannisbet · 3 pointsr/graphic_design

Without seeing your work, one common thing about design is that we're always looking to create a flow and hierarchy of information so that the viewer can easily figure out what to do next, or pick out the information they need to move on to their next task (whatever that is).

It goes above aesthetics because we need design to do some work.

One of the best ways to help us organize all of that is by using grid systems. You'll find plenty of books on Amazon. Grid Systems in Graphic Design is one of the gold-standards, but it can be a bit pricy if you're still in school. I have Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Design on my bookshelf and it got the job done while I was learning about grids. It's a bit more budget-friendly as well.

u/mcplaid · 2 pointsr/design_critiques

thanks for posting. I think you have a great attitude, and honestly, attitude counts for more than you think.

I'll not critique the website, but, knowing you're new to the fundamentals, try to share some more general thoughts.

  1. do more. I think you're starting this already with some of your sketches for mini cooper. but always, always, do more. 50 iterations, 100 iterations. Keep pushing beyond the obvious, and use sketching as the tool to do that. I read an old design book, from the 70s, that said "only one solution is the symptom of an inflexible and untrained mind." /r/52weeksofdesign

  2. Time to get up on the basics. That means the basics of drawing (if you so please). It's not a requirement as a designer (I'm a piss poor artist), but it definitely helps sometimes. http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-Right-Side-Brain-Definitive/dp/1585429201/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419898682&sr=8-1&keywords=right+hand+drawing

    What sketching is important for is flexing ideas and testing compositions before going to the computer.

  3. Learn the basics of typography:
    http://www.amazon.com/Stealing-Graphic-Design-Communication-Courses/dp/0321934288/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898490&sr=1-1&keywords=stop+stealing+sheep

    http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Typographic-Style-Version-Anniversary/dp/0881792128/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898879&sr=1-1&keywords=robert+bringhurst

    http://www.amazon.com/Thinking-Type-2nd-revised-expanded/dp/1568989695/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898800&sr=1-2&keywords=typography

  4. Grids
    http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419898762&sr=1-1&keywords=kimberly+elan

    http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestaltung/dp/3721201450/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1419898837&sr=8-1&keywords=grid+systems

  5. Photography (if you like)
    http://www.amazon.com/Black-White-Photography-Manual-Revised/dp/0316373052/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1419898921&sr=8-2&keywords=black+and+white+photography

    and

  6. remember that this is detail work. So things like spelling errors in this post, and on your website, should be resolved.

    Above and beyond the basics, I see your passion is impacting the world through design. So the question becomes HOW can graphic design impact the world, and does it at all? and what can you make or do directly? I think above all, a designer is an entrepreneur these days. Especially with that main driving passion.
u/arbitrarycolors · 2 pointsr/Design

I've found all of these books to be helpful. I think you mainly would find the Grid Systems book useful.

Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam is a pretty good reference for using grids and better understanding composition. It has alot of examples of works that are accompanied by transparent pages that have grids to lay over them.

Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton helped with just understanding typography better.

Designing Type by Karen Cheng is good for understanding the intricacies of type and the differences between different typefaces by using grids.

u/an_ennui · 2 pointsr/design_critiques

> However, do you think my idea of left-right-left layout is aesthetic or at least interesting?

Sure! You can get weird with type layout, but that’s a solid choice. This page has a few more examples.

> Do you suggest googling "horror/scary fonts" and experimenting?

No. Baskerville is a classy, timeless font. If you try to convey “spooky” with a typeface, it’ll probably come across as corny/miserable reading. Keep Baskerville, but convey spooky with colors and possibly texture that don’t affect the reading experience. You could also try getting weird with text animations.

> I love those typography hacks! Do you have more?

A quick 10-minute read has a few more tips: Typography in 10 minutes. Beyond that, it’s probably time to buy a book on typography like this or this. Sadly, there just aren’t any online resources or articles that match the quality of old-fashioned printed material when it comes to type layout.

u/PusherLoveGirl · 1 pointr/GraphicDesign

If you want to get more in-depth with grids and layouts you should check out Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam. It has a lot of explanations on what different layouts and grids accomplish and includes pictures of grid-based layouts with a transparent page with that layout's grid overlaid on the image (i.e. there's a transparent page with just the grid and the next page is the actual image).

It's really helped me out in certain designs and in general is an interesting book.

u/andhelostthem · 1 pointr/Design

Look for books on grid design (here's a simple one I own), check out some magazines with good design (wired, espn) and watch framing and color use in high end commercials, billboards and print ads.

u/kakajuice · 1 pointr/Design

First, I would study some basic design principles. Look at a few books on typography, grid, etc. Learn about some of the major design movements.

Check out these book:
http://www.amazon.com/Universal-Principles-Design-Revised-Updated/dp/1592535879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1299115160&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1299115186&sr=1-7-spell

What tends to happen is most people dive into these tutorials knowing how to use the programs, but not knowing anything about design in general. Knowing how to use Photoshop doesn't necessarily mean you are a designer, like knowing how to play a few chords on a guitar doesn't necessarily make you a musician.

Web design is big now, but if you want to hop on the next gravy train, I'd suggest getting into Mobile / Tablet visual design. The demand is hot and theres not enough people who know how to do proper visual design for touch screen devices.

Oh yeah, and Lynda.com and tutsplus is good too. Learn the programs, but don't expend too much energy learning fancy lighting tricks until you've learnt the basics of design. It'll help build a foundation on which you can go from there.





u/bobdylans49thbeard · 1 pointr/web_design

The book Grid Systems by Kimberly Elam is amazing and extremely useful in understanding design. Available on Amazon here. I can't recommend it enough.

u/minglemangle · -1 pointsr/web_design

yes, and/or Elam's http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Principles-Organizing-Design/dp/1568984650/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1248720042&sr=8-1

Grid Systems

understanding and having good grid skills is pretty much foundational and essential.