grids

why do we as designers use grids?

what are the benefits or functions?

look around you.  grids are everywhere--the tiles on the floor, the table set-up in a restaurant, the lines in the parking lot, city blocks.  grids are an essential part of our everyday life.  they keep things looking clean and organized, and aesthetically pleasing.  this is also much of the reason that we as designers use grids in our own work.  not only does it make communicating the message easier, but is visually satisfying.  if everything is scattered and un-aligned, someone is much less likely to want to read it or even so, look at it.  

there are many benefits to using a grid.  it helps us to organize our work so that it is easily readable and interesting to look at.   even if it wasn't a requirement, i would prefer to use a grid because you can lay things out and really get a good balance on the whole page.  

just looking at this movie poster of helvetica, you can see that some sort of a grid was used.  the "v-e-t" is offset but still helps to balance the rest of the words out and make for a very interesting and fun design.

sources:  

http://www.markboulton.co.uk/articles/detail/why_use_a_grid/

http://walkingdisaster8.blogspot.com

who is paul rand?

To this day, Paul Rand is one of the greatest graphic designers America has ever seen.  Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1914, Paul had an interest in design since he was just a little boy.  At a young age, Rand began painting signs for his fathers store and for various school events, and fell in love with the hobby.  His father never though art was something one could make a living out of, so while attending high school, his father suggested that he take night classes at the Pratt Institute.  After that, Rand attended various other art schools, including Parson's School of Design and the Art Students League, even though it was never something that meant much to him.  Rand was never one to be taught how to design.  Because of this, Rand learned most of style by following other designer's work and teaching himself, and was very successful in doing so.  

After attending school himself, Rand taught design at Yale University, and began designing logos for various corporations.  Paul created many well-known logos, some of which are still in use today, such as IBM, ABC, and UPS.  The style he used was very effective, simple and to-the-point.

Later in his life, in 1972, Rand was inducted into the New York Art Director's Hall of Fame.  In 1996 Rand died of cancer and will ever be remembered as one of America's greatest graphic designers of all time.

Sources:  

http://www.logodesignlove.com/all-about-paul-rand

http://www.paul-rand.com/

http://www.logoblog.org/wordpress/paul-rand/