Level Up Your Designs with Aligned Grids 🚀

Summary

In 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

00:00

🎨 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.

05:01

📐 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.

10:03

🌐 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.

Keywords

💡Raster Systems

Raster Systems refers to a book titled 'Grid Systems in English,' which is considered a fundamental resource for graphic designers. It provides comprehensive guidance on designing with grids. In the video, the book is introduced as a 'Bible' for anyone looking to learn graphic design and grid-based layout techniques. The video aims to address common issues graphic designers face when creating grids that are not perfectly aligned, using this book as a reference point.

💡Grid Systems

Grid Systems are a set of guidelines used in graphic design to structure content in a visually organized and aesthetically pleasing manner. The video discusses the creation of grids, emphasizing the importance of alignment and harmony. The speaker demonstrates how to create a 'mathematically perfect' grid system that aligns with the baseline grid, which is crucial for a harmonious design layout.

💡Baseline Grid

The Baseline Grid is a fundamental aspect of grid systems in graphic design, referring to the horizontal lines on which text is aligned. In the video, the speaker highlights the importance of aligning the baseline grid with the overall grid system to ensure that text sits correctly within the design. This alignment is key to achieving a clean and professional look in the final design.

💡Modular Grid

A Modular Grid is a type of grid system where elements are repeated in a pattern to create a structure. The video script mentions a modular grid as part of the design process, but points out that it often doesn't align perfectly with the baseline grid, leading to visual inconsistencies. The speaker then provides a method to correct this misalignment to achieve a perfect grid.

💡Adobe InDesign

Adobe InDesign is a desktop publishing software used for creating professional layouts for print media. The video uses InDesign as the platform for demonstrating the grid creation process. The script references specific features of InDesign, such as the Baseline Grid and the ability to create and manipulate text frames, which are essential tools for graphic designers using the software.

💡Leading

Leading in typography refers to the space between lines of type. The video emphasizes the importance of adjusting leading to ensure readability and visual flow in text. The speaker shows how to set leading in InDesign to align with the baseline grid, which is a critical step in creating a well-structured grid system.

💡Squarespace

Squarespace is a website building platform that offers tools for creating and managing websites. The video mentions Squarespace as a sponsor and discusses its features, such as the fluid engine for grid-based editing and the ability to customize templates. The speaker suggests that Squarespace can be a valuable tool for graphic designers to showcase their work online.

💡Fluid Engine

The Fluid Engine is a feature of Squarespace that allows for easy editing within a grid system, providing a flexible and intuitive interface for designing websites. The video script highlights this feature as beneficial for graphic designers, enabling them to create responsive and visually appealing web designs.

💡Sticky Parts

Sticky Parts is a feature mentioned in the context of Squarespace, allowing elements on a website to remain fixed in place as the user scrolls. This feature can enhance the visual appeal and user experience of a website by creating dynamic and engaging layouts. The video suggests that this is a useful tool for graphic designers building websites.

💡Increments

Increments in the context of the video refer to the adjustable units used in grid systems to define spacing and alignment. The speaker demonstrates how to set increments in Adobe InDesign to match the leading size, which helps in creating a perfectly aligned grid system. This attention to detail is crucial for achieving a harmonious design.

💡Factors

Factors, in the context of the video, are the divisors of a number that determine the number of columns and rows in a grid. The speaker calculates the factors of the total number of lines in the baseline grid to determine the optimal number of columns and rows for the modular grid. This mathematical approach ensures that the grid divides evenly and aligns perfectly.

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

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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

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very easily you can take one of the

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your heart's content you can move

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fluid panel they also have sticky parts

now so you can actually stick certain

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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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