Map Your Designs with Layout Grids

Most documents have a hidden map that guides the reader to the elements they want to read. This map ensures that page numbers are placed in the same part of each page; that text flows from the bottom of one column to the top of the next; and that illustrations always line up with the same page elements. Readers usually don’t even think about the existence of this map, they just use it.

This map is made possible by the page grid (sometimes called a layout grid). It turns a page into a group of rectangles, each of which contains similar content from page to page. Grids not only help your reader, they also help you structure your document. You should use grids, master pages and style sheets to speed the design and production of any long document.

Grids can be simple: header, content and footer; or they can be complicated, like those used in most broadsheet newspapers. Grids can be static, like those used in most paperback novels. A grid can have a lot of variations, like the one used in "Wired" magazine in the mid-1990s. Despite these variances, all grids do the same thing: provide a visual map of any page.

Just as an architect starts a design with a blueprint, you should start designing a long document by building the grid or grids you plan to use. In order to build a grid you need to know the document’s audience.

Once you understand your audience and how it will use your document, you can begin designing its grid. The following are some general guidelines for creating page grids:

• Newspapers, magazines and newsletters, which contain many stories and illustrations, generally use complex grids with a vertical column layout.
• Novels and other documents without many illustrations often use simple grids that contain one to three different blocks.
• Two-column grids can look static and “locked-up.” Three or more columns usually work better.
• Know when to go off of your grid. For instance, center spreads often need their own grid that is designed specifically for their content.

Whatever kind of document you create, remember that layout grids prevent you and your readers from getting lost.

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