Gridlock

Folio: The Magazine for Magazine Management, Jan, 2001 by John Johanek, Deborah J. Schwab

Although they are invisible, grids impose logic and stability on a magazine, allowing all elements from the cover forward to work in harmony. A really good grid even lets you ignore its confines--occasionally.

Grids are to magazines what skeletons are to humans. They're the underlying, usually invisible, structures that support and define the graphics and create a magazine's identity. Although all human skeletons are basically the same, all humans don't look alike. This is true of magazines, too. Grids are what make magazines look like magazines, but how grids are manipulated gives each magazine a unique personality.

Vertical grids

Every designer is familiar with vertical grids. Most magazines employ a two-or three-column format for body text. They establish margins for the page and then flow the copy into the text columns within those margins. For many magazines, that's their idea of a grid. However, while simple is good, it's not very sophisticated--and confining design to a few column widths has its drawbacks.

A grid also needs to serve as a guide for the placement of photos, pull-quotes, sidebars and other support graphics. Adhering to a simple grid means that these elements will be limited to just a few different widths. When graphics violate the columns and begin to notch into adjacent text or margins without an underlying design logic, the magazine's structure breaks down. Design appears sloppy and ill-conceived, and the magazine projects a haphazard and unprofessional look.

It's important to understand the difference between a grid column and a text column. The trick is creating an underlying structure of grid columns that results in a selection of standard text-column widths. The majority of magazines are built on three text columns per page--a decision usually influenced by the need to accommodate fractional advertising. But some magazines go further and segment each text column--to four grid columns for each text column, perhaps. The result is a three-text-column page that's built on a 12-grid-column format.

With an arrangement like this, it's easy to modify the text columns. For example, you can create two text columns per page by using six grid columns for each text column, or four text columns per page using three grid columns for each. The result is design options that allow the magazine to vary column widths for different portions of the magazine--for example, four text columns per page for departments and two text columns per page for features--while retaining the same basic page structure throughout the magazine. Additionally, multiple vertical guides create consistent parameters for support graphics such as photos and sidebars, while providing varying width options.

Some magazines prefer to set up separate grids for each facet of the magazine. This helps to identify portions of the magazine and builds organization into the design. Repetition builds familiarity, and soon readers develop a comfort level with the magazine.

Horizontal grids

Horizontal grids are another structural device that help define a magazine's look. Here the invisible gridlines work to establish optical reference points that create a design pattern throughout the pages. For example, it can be something as simple as a guideline two inches down from the top trim that works as a clothesline from which photos or other graphics are suspended to create uniformity.

Some magazines have an upper gridline that defines a larger margin for shorter columns of text, thus creating a noticeable band of white space across carryover pages. Still others use a similar line at the bottom of the page for creating a ragged bottom of body text. (The lower Set of lines creates a ragged bottom by establishing minimum and maximum lengths for columns of copy.) The result is more interesting text columns without sacrificing consistency.

Horizontal gridlines can also serve as placement cues for pull-quotes, markers for uniformly dividing text columns, or guidelines for affixing page icons or banners. They should provide a subtle underlying pattern to the magazine that individually goes undetected, but collectively makes the magazine easier to navigate.

Advertising concerns

Fractional advertising is a driving force in what kind of underlying grid will work for your magazine. Incorporating vertical one-third-page ads or half-page-island ads into a standard-size magazine will require an underlying grid that's divisible by three. But some magazines accept only larger size ads or no ads at all. This allows them to employ more inventive vertical grids, such as five or seven columns per page.

Forcing smaller fractional ads onto an incompatible grid will create unsightly gaps and misalignment. Be sure any grid you create will conform with the ads sizes listed in your rate card.

Cover to cover

Many grids get their starting point from the front cover. Although the vertical grid may be dictated by advertising standards, horizontal grids that tie in to key horizontal elements on the cover will have a unifying effect. Using the base of the logo, for example, to establish a horizontal line near the top of the pages inside brings a subtle yet effective design point from the cover to the inside. If the top of the logo has a similarly strong edge, that can also become a gridline. Some covers have rooflines--a string of cover copy across the top of the magazine above the logo. When the base of that cover element is carried to the inside as a position for overlines (kickers) on departments and columns, for example, or banners on features, it adds one more