Level Up Your Designs with Aligned Grids 🚀
Summary
TLDRIn this video, the speaker explores the intricacies of grid systems in graphic design, emphasizing the importance of aligning the modular grid with the baseline grid for a harmonious design. They demonstrate how to create a document in Adobe InDesign, adjust text size and leading for readability, and align the text to the baseline grid. The tutorial also covers creating a Baseline grid that matches the leading size, adjusting margins, and designing a modular grid that fits the content perfectly. The speaker introduces a method to ensure grid alignment and discusses the use of Squarespace for building websites, highlighting its customizable templates and ease of use for designers. The video concludes with tips on creating a perfect grid system for design work.
Takeaways
- 📚 The book 'Raster Systems or Grid Systems' is highly recommended for serious graphic designers looking to master grid-based design.
- 🔍 A common issue in graphic design is the misalignment of baseline grids with modular grids, which can disrupt the harmony of design elements.
- 🌐 There are online resources available for creating perfectly aligned grids, ensuring that all elements, including text, are in harmony with the baseline grid.
- 🖥️ Adobe InDesign is highlighted as a powerful tool for editorial design, allowing for precise control over grid creation and alignment.
- 🔢 The importance of readability is emphasized, with the suggestion that body text should ideally span 5 to 9 words per line for ease of reading.
- ✂️ Leading, or the space between lines of text, is crucial and should be set according to the readability of the body text, often matching the text size for a clean look.
- 📏 Aligning the margins to the baseline grid is key to achieving a perfect grid system, and adjustments may be necessary to ensure this alignment.
- 🎨 Customizing the grid to fit specific design needs, such as choosing the number of columns and rows, is possible by adjusting leading sizes and margins.
- 🔗 Squarespace is promoted as a user-friendly platform for designers to showcase their work, with features like the fluid engine for grid-based editing and customizable templates.
- 📈 The video provides a step-by-step guide on creating a mathematically perfect grid in Adobe InDesign, from setting up the document to aligning text and margins.
Q & A
What is the book 'Raster Systems or Grid Systems' considered to be for graphic designers?
-The book 'Raster Systems or Grid Systems' is considered the 'Bible' for anyone wanting to learn graphic design and how to design using grids.
What is the common issue with grids created by graphic designers according to the transcript?
-The common issue is that the Baseline grid, where text sits and everything lines up, is often not perfectly aligned with the modular grid.
What website is recommended in the transcript for creating perfectly aligned grids?
-The website recommended for creating perfectly aligned grids is not explicitly named in the transcript, but it is mentioned that grids can be downloaded from it.
What is the significance of the Baseline grid in graphic design as discussed in the transcript?
-The Baseline grid is significant because it aligns the text, ensuring that all lines of text are in one line, which is crucial for a harmonious and mathematically perfect grid system.
How does the presenter suggest ensuring readability in body text size in the transcript?
-The presenter suggests ensuring readability by creating a column with about 5 to 9 words on average on each line.
What is the role of leading in the grid system as explained in the transcript?
-Leading, the space between each line of text, plays a crucial role in the grid system as it affects the readability and overall alignment of the text to the Baseline grid.
How does the presenter propose to align the margins with the Baseline grid in the transcript?
-The presenter proposes to align the margins with the Baseline grid by adjusting the top and side margins to be three times the leading increments and then fine-tuning the bottom margin to ensure it aligns perfectly.
What is the purpose of creating a shape from one Baseline to another as mentioned in the transcript?
-Creating a shape from one Baseline to another is used to accurately measure the height needed to align the margins with the Baseline grid.
What is the 'fluid engine' feature of Squarespace mentioned in the transcript?
-The 'fluid engine' is a feature of Squarespace that allows for easy editing of websites within a grid system, offering customization and flexibility in design.
How does the presenter determine the number of rows and columns for the modular grid in the transcript?
-The presenter determines the number of rows and columns for the modular grid by dividing the total number of lines by factors that work well with the chosen leading size, aiming for a gutter size equal to the leading size.
What is the final step the presenter takes to ensure the grid is perfectly aligned in the transcript?
-The final step the presenter takes is to lock the guides and adjust the margins slightly to remove an extra gutter line, ensuring the grid is perfectly aligned.
Outlines
🎨 Perfecting Grid Systems in Graphic Design
The paragraph discusses the importance of grid systems in graphic design, particularly the alignment of modular and baseline grids. It introduces a website for creating perfectly aligned grids and emphasizes the need for harmonious design systems. The speaker demonstrates how to create a new document in Adobe InDesign, set up text size and leading for readability, and align text to the baseline grid. The process of adjusting margins to align with the baseline grid is also covered, along with a preference setup for units and increments to ensure grid consistency.
📐 Aligning Text and Margins to the Baseline Grid
This section delves into the specifics of aligning body text to the baseline grid in Adobe InDesign, adjusting the view threshold for better visibility, and starting the grid at zero points for ease of use. The paragraph explains how to redefine basic paragraph styles and ensure that all margins are aligned with the baseline grid. It also introduces a method for fine-tuning margins using the info panel to align them perfectly with the baseline, creating a cohesive and professional look for the design.
🌐 Creating Modular Grids and Sponsor Mention
The final paragraph focuses on creating modular grids within the design software, discussing the process of determining the number of lines for grid division and choosing factors that work well with the design's leading size and margin sizes. It also touches on the importance of aligning guides to margins and adjusting margins to remove extra gutter lines for a perfect grid. Additionally, the paragraph includes a sponsorship mention for Squarespace, highlighting its benefits for graphic designers to create and customize websites easily, and offering a discount code for the audience.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Raster Systems
💡Grid Systems
💡Baseline Grid
💡Modular Grid
💡Adobe InDesign
💡Leading
💡Squarespace
💡Fluid Engine
💡Sticky Parts
💡Increments
💡Factors
Highlights
The importance of using grid systems in graphic design for creating harmonious layouts.
Introduction to the book 'Raster Systems or Grid Systems' as a key resource for learning grid-based design.
Challenges faced by graphic designers in aligning baseline grids with modular grids.
Utilizing a website to create perfectly aligned grids for design work.
The significance of aligning text to the baseline grid for readability and aesthetic appeal.
Creating a new document in Adobe InDesign for grid design practice.
Setting up text size and leading for optimal readability in editorial design.
Ensuring the number of words per line in a column is between 5 to 9 for better reader guidance.
Adjusting leading to improve text flow and readability in grid design.
Aligning margins to the baseline grid for a more precise grid layout.
Customizing the baseline grid to match the leading size for better alignment.
Fixing bottom margin alignment issues by adjusting the margin size.
The role of Squarespace in providing an easy-to-use platform for graphic designers to showcase their work.
Creating modular grids with specific row and column counts that align with the baseline grid.
Adjusting gutter sizes to ensure perfect alignment of the modular grid with the baseline grid.
Tips for creating titles and headings that fit within the grid system for a cohesive design.
Finalizing the grid design with images and text to demonstrate a perfectly aligned and harmonious layout.
Encouragement for graphic designers to subscribe for more tips on improving design work with grid systems.
Transcripts
if you're a serious graphic designer
then you probably have this book this
book is called raster systems or grid
systems in English it's all about how to
design to the grid and this is the Bible
for anyone who wants to learn graphic
design and how to grid things but the
problem is most of the times when we
create grids as graphic designers like
this it isn't perfect you see we have a
modular grid here however the Baseline
grid which is where Tech sits and how we
line everything up is not lined up this
leads us to this website here where we
can actually create grids like so and
everything from the Baseline grid is in
alignment and you can download this I'll
link this in the description but many
times when graphic designers are
creating grids for the work they can't
seem to make it fully harmonious it
never seems to work if I zoom in you'll
see here we have a modular grid but when
I zoom in we have a baseline grid this
is where text is supposed to sit so how
then do we make it so that this modular
grid is perfectly in line with the
Baseline grid giving us mathematically
perfect or near perfect grid systems
that we can use in our design work like
so where everything just flows and is
harmonious now the problem with grids is
that most of the time when we create
them they look great however they don't
align to the Baseline grid which is this
guy here it's all these blue lines and
it's switched on in Adobe in design like
so well in this video brought to you by
Squarespace I'm going to be showing you
how to create the grids that you see in
this box B and how you can make them
mathematically perfect to create a
harmonious
system okay first of all I'm going to
create a new document I'm just going to
go ahead and create an A4 document to
make it landscape and I'm going to
switch off facing Pages this just means
it's one page if you need to in design
it is an editorial design program so you
can do things like this create PDFs this
is all about getting the design of FL
magazines and things like that so you
have good editorial design okay we've
got our blank document here if you press
W you get this sort of preview panel
there easy enough the first trick before
do anything with a grid is working out
the size of our text and leading so I'm
just going to draw a box like so and
press this Nifty fill with placeholder
button nice okay we've got text I know I
want my font to be helvetic new so we're
going to go helve can you regular that's
way too large I want it to be body Tech
size so what I'm going to do is I'm
going to scale it down I think that is a
bit too small I'm going to bring it up
to eight let's fill it with more
placeholder text there that looks good
now the trick with body teex size isn't
getting it very small it's actually
making it very readable and there's a
few ways we can ensure that this is
readable to the average audience what
I'm looking for is creating a column and
I want to make sure that my column has
about s to nine words on average on each
line and the way that I do this is
easily go up to window down to info and
it will give me this little box here
here so when I click on a random line it
will tell me hopefully how many words
there are on each line so 7 to n words
is what we're looking for this means
that the reader doesn't have to like
read a long piece of information like
this where it becomes hard to read but
they are guided down okay now the next
thing once you've worked out the sizing
we work out the leading which is this
panel here this panel is very important
a lot of the time it will be
automatically there but I don't like to
do that and it's not a good idea what we
want to do is increase the leading to
the point of where it easily flows where
it looks good to the reader something
else I'm going to do is turn off
hyphenate which makes life easier for me
and I'm going to increase the leading
make sure I can read this really nicely
yeah that looks good so right now what
we have is helvetic can new regular in
eight points and 11o leading leading is
the space in between each line and it's
really important to get this right cuz
everything is actually based on the
leading of our body text okay next thing
I'm going to go to preferences so
command or control K I'm going to go
into units and increments and I'm going
to change it for myself to points the
next step is we need to create the
Baseline grid so if you wanted to know
the Baseline grid is here this button
there if you zoom out you won't see it
if zoom in you will so if you can't see
it just zoom in and you'll see that it
will appear you'll notice that our text
isn't on the Baseline Grid it's kind of
just everywhere so what we want to do is
Select our text and press this button
under the paragraph section and it will
force it to the Baseline and it looks
good however it isn't correct and that's
because our margins which is this pink
line isn't aligned to the Baseline grid
we need to make sure that the margins
are in line with it so one thing we need
to do is make our Baseline grid the same
as the leading so we do that by going
into preferences again so command or
control K we're going to go to grids I'm
going to change my color to like
charcoal and then what I'm going to do
is we're going to create an increment
not every to points but 11 points
because that is what our leading is for
our body text we're going to decrease
the view threshold so I can see this
more often for you to 12.5 we're also
going to press the start at zero points
we want it to start at the top of the
page to make things easier once we've
got that press okay and you'll see that
it changes dramatically so our body text
now is aligned to the Baseline grid if
it wasn't it would look like this if it
is it looks kind of similar though it's
just moving ever so slightly and it
works well because now anytime we create
text like so the text will be
automatically aligned to the Baseline
grid which means that all the lines of
text are in one line perfect that's
exactly what we want okay the only
problem that we have now is our margins
they don't look correct so what we need
to do is keep that number 11 in our
minds cuz that is the main number that
we'll be working with all the way we're
going to redefine the basic paragraph
style to save that style so what we want
to do is on the top margin here we want
to make sure this top margin or all the
margins fit together so an easy way of
doing this is by just clicking on your
board go up to the margins and we're
going to say 11 * three points when we
do that it will bring our margins at the
top and at the side three times the
increments and that creates the margin
there and it's perfectly on that
Baseline however we have a problem down
here this isn't in line now this is
where people get kind of shook up with
this sort of thing now if we look at the
bottom here though it is not in line now
this is where people struggle in in
design and to create the grids but I'm
going to show you a really easy method
that I found on other videos and from
other designers around there this method
is so easy what we're going to do is
draw a shape that is from this Baseline
to that Baseline make sure it is the
shape not the stroke and we're going to
go to our info panel which is really
useful we're going to take the height
into accordance so 1.
1276 so with that I can now take the
margins and we can add or subtract 1.27
6 so with that I'm going to go up to the
margins here make sure that this is
unchecked cuz we only want the bottom
margin to be affected we're going to go
plus 1.27 6 press okay and you'll notice
that our margin line at the bottom is
perfectly in line with the Basel line
grid which is great exactly what we want
amazing so we have our margins and we
have our Baseline grid working now it's
time to create the grids but before I do
that I wanted to talk about another grid
system that can be used inside of our
sponsor Squarespace if you're a graphic
designer thinking about coming one a
student seasoned designer it doesn't
matter who you are you need a website to
show your work it's not good enough
anymore just to have an Instagram
profile or a social media handle for
people to see your work you need your
own corner of the internet well
Squarespace is amazing not only because
it is easy to use which always sounds
like a bad thing for us designers it's a
great thing because they have this new
thing called a fluid engine which allows
you to edit the website within a grid
very easily you can take one of the
thousands of fully customizable
award-winning templates and edit it to
your heart's content you can move
content wherever you like within this
fluid panel they also have sticky parts
now so you can actually stick certain
elements to make your websites look
amazing you can create your own store to
sell templates you can have an online
course I put logo launch on there
because it's so customizable and best of
all if you click the link down below you
get a free trial of Squarespace and also
10% off your first purchase you don't
have to worry about domains your email
or anything like that it sorts
everything for you it's so easy so if
you'd like to try Squarespace and give
it a go and support the channel and do
better for yourself then click the link
down below or use my code Patterson at
the end of the checkup thanks for
sponsoring okay we've got the margins we
need to create some modular grids now
but first I'm going to go and change the
color of my guides by going to ruler
guide and I'm going to change it to
Fiesta because it's easier for you to
see on video before we create the guides
we need to work out how many lines there
are here because we need to find the
factor we need to be able to divide this
by a certain number for it to work so
I'm going to click here select all and
in my info panel it will tell me there's
48 lines which is great now if I type
into Google which is what I do for maths
what does 48 divid by it will give me
the factors of 48 which is great we get
1 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 24 48 now sometimes
you'll get numbers that don't work well
and with that that means that you should
change your leading size and your margin
sizes to to get some good numbers there
I'm going to choose number eight and 12
I want this grid to be eight and 12 but
I could choose four and six I could
choose two and four I could choose 16
and 24 or 12 and 24 any of these will
work so now that we know that what we're
going to do is we're going to go to
layout we're going to create some guides
and I'm going to show you something
really interesting we're going to have
eight rows we're going to make sure that
our gutter is not 12 points but 11
points which is our leading size and
then we're going to say 12 columns with
11 points there we're going to make sure
the fit guides option is to margins and
when I press okay you'll notice it is
still not aligned which is frustrating
for everyone it's pretty annoying well
the reason why this happens is because
we have an extra gutter in there we have
an extra gutter line happening we need
to take one away and we can do this
quite easily by just changing the margin
slightly watch so you see we have a
margin of three at the top kind of three
at the bottom for this to work all we
need to do is decide which margin we
want to increase or decrease I'm going
to decrease the bottom down here and
it's really easy all I have to do is go
to the margins bit here make sure it's
not linked and I'm going to go to the
end remember the lead size we're going
to go minus 11 points and all we're
going to do is we're going to add to
this margin at the bottom to make it
smaller and all we're going to do is
we're going to go plus 11 points and
there you go it has decreased the margin
moved it up slightly by one so we're
missing one of those gutters I'm going
to move this up as well so now when we
go to layout create guides we're going
to press eight for the number of rows
make sure it's 11 points we're going to
go 12 and 11 points here and press okay
we have a perfectly and I mean perfect
grid right there very nice very modular
I'm going to go to view we're going to
go to guides we're going to lock the
guides now I can add my text in here
like so a lot of line work here but do
not fret add some placeholder there we
go actually going to move this text box
down ever so slightly and now we can
have some columns if we wanted to we
could do this we can increase this fill
it we can change the text frame to 11
points in width and create a couple of
text frames or we can create three if we
wanted to and now we have a perfectly
aligned grid where it works all the way
there and the great thing about this is
that we can actually add images and
everything else that we need like so
okay the the final thing how do we make
it so we have titles like these what do
we do with these type systems well one
way I like to do this personally is by
creating a text box let's just call it
title heading just some random words
we're going to create a new paragraph
style what I'm going to do is instantly
go to my text here and I'm just going to
times it by two so 16 and I'm going to
change it from regular to medium and
then as well as that if we need to we
can detach it from the Baseline good if
we need to so we can like move bever we
need to but I don't need to that for
here because right here I can just add
it here make sure it fits to the grid
and from here what we can do is add some
frames for some images we add some more
text down here I can add this juicy
picture of me and copy this to show the
effect of what we're having and we have
perfectly aligned work all the way
through so that is how you actually
create a mathematically perfect grid if
you enjoyed this video please press that
subscribe button because I'm going to be
posting more about little tips like this
to any new or Advanced graphic designer
out there do better in their design work
thanks for watching and I'll see you in
the next video see you soon goodbye
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