Build better page grids

By Computer Arts on October 10, 2008

Master the grids and guides features of your layout software. Alistair Dabbs shows you how to endow your print design work with more structure, consistency and speed.

Any print project that runs across more than one page probably needs a layout grid. Officially, the purpose of a grid is to standardise the basic layout features from one page to the next, thereby maintaining visual consistency across the entire publication.

This in turn helps readers become familiar with the design and navigate through the pages comfortably. And as any editor will tell you, if you can make readers comfortable, they will come back for more.

Unofficially, a page grid also triggers a brilliant side effect: it lets you do more work in less time. With a grid sitting on every page, half the chore of layout is done before you even start to flex your design muscles. So here we'll look at how to build effective, practical and versatile grids for a variety of multi-page print publications, such as books, leaflets and magazines.

Click here to download the tutorial for free