Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
by Timothy Samara
List Price:
Our Price: $15.68
You Save: $9.32 (37%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $15.00 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Timothy SamaraEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-05-01
ISBN: 1592531253
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Rockport Publishers
Book Reviews of Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop
Book Review: The big book of clarity and chaos
Summary: 3 Stars
What a strange publication. Divided into two sections the first explaining grid formatting with actual printed material and the second revealing how to design print without a grid.
There seems a contradiction here because the grid, used intelligently, will allow a whole range of graphic options to be presented with clarity. Some of the print examples reproduced in the first section do show this with perhaps the most useful item a grid thumbnail for each piece, unfortunately I thought it was rather too small on each spread despite being the key to explaining each format. From past experience, designing magazines, I would start work on a grid by concentrating on the text type size because it is the least flexible of all the elements on the page. This point really wasn't made enough of in the book's chapter: Grid Basics.
The reproductions show a reasonable range of design solutions, essentially print though there is an example of corporate signage. Missing are magazines (consumer or trade) timetables and the like. Without a grid this type of printed matter really wouldn't exist.
The book's contradiction, to my mind, start with the second section: 'Grid Deconstructions and Non-Grid-Based Design Projects'. The forty items shown seem to have a couple of common threads: their design is essentially arbitrary which makes them look very messy and frequently their typography (display and text) is used as a design element which makes the words unreadable. Their design is the opposite of grid stimulated creativity, in other words visual chaos.
Some of the examples are quite amazing. On page 180-181 twelve pages of a calendar are shown, totally useless as its impossible to see the days and dates. Pages 188-189 show eight spreads from a design school journal showing irregular shaped blocks of text creating a sort of collage. I doubt anyone made the effort to read any of it. What is interesting about this second section material is that so much of it comes from educational establishments. In the real world all this designer whimsy would be rejected by the client on sight of the first dummy
'Making and Breaking the Grid' is well printed with 175dpi and the layout is adequate and for a book about grids you would have thought its own grid would have been included but it is strangely missing. Overall I felt that because the contents present two opposite design ideals the book's editorial concept is rather flawed.
From my experience there is only one book that really explains it all: Muller-Brockmann's 'Grid Systems in Graphic Design' published in Switzerland and full of good solid, practical, hands-on information. This book's only purpose is creative clarity.
Arts & Photography Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Audiobooks on Cassette
- Audiobooks on CD
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- e-Books
- Engineering
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Medicine
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Books for Muck
Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative-Thinking Techniques (2nd Edition)by Michael Michalko
Ten Speed Press; Published: 2006-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.86
Price in other shops:
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs)by Ellen Lupton
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2004-09-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.50
Price in other shops:
Visual Thinkingby Rudolf Arnheim
University of California Press; Published: 2004-04-16; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eyeby Rudolf Arnheim
University of California Press; Published: 2004-11-08; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.95
Price in other shops:
Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works (2nd Edition)by Erik Spiekermann, E.M Ginger
Adobe Press; Published: 2002-07-25; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshopby Timothy Samara
Rockport Publishers; Published: 2005-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops:
Visual Literacy: A Conceptual Approach to Graphic Problem Solvingby Judith Wilde, Richard Wilde
Watson-Guptill; Published: 2000-04-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.95
Price in other shops:
Exploring the Elements of Design (Design Exploration Series)by Poppy Evans, Mark A. Thomas
Delmar Cengage Learning; Published: 2007-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Graphic Design Basics, Revised Printing (with InfoTrac)by Amy E. Arntson
Wadsworth Publishing; Published: 2002-12-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Graphic Design: The New Basicsby Ellen Lupton, Jennifer Cole Phillips
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2008-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $29.92
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
1,000 Type Treatments: From Script to Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfectionby Wilson Harvey
Rockport Publishers; Published: 2008-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.48
Price in other shops:
Graphic Design: The New Basicsby Ellen Lupton, Phillips Jennifer Cole
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2008-03-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.39
Price in other shops:
Fingerprint: The Art of Using Hand-Made Elements in Graphic Designby Chen Design Associates
How; Published: 2006-10-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.24
Price in other shops:
How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soulby Adrian Shaughnessy
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2005-09-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.38
Price in other shops:
Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type (Design Briefs)by Kimberly Elam
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2004-08-12; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.24
Price in other shops:
Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Designby Timothy Samara
Rockport Publishers; Published: 2006-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.55
Price in other shops:
Design Elements: A Graphic Style Manualby Timothy Samara
Rockport Publishers; Published: 2007-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops:
Layout Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Building Pages in Graphic Designby Kristin Cullen
Rockport Publishers; Published: 2007-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.68
Price in other shops:
The Elements of Typographic Styleby Robert Bringhurst
Hartley and Marks Publishers; Published: 2004-10-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.77
Price in other shops:
Thinking with Type: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students (Design Briefs)by Ellen Lupton
Princeton Architectural Press; Published: 2004-09-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.00
Price in other shops: