The Designer and the Grid reveals the key to the hidden driving force behind almost all graphic design: the grid. The book begins by reviewing its ubiquity in a cultural context before concentrating on the principles of the grid within graphic design. Case studies and interviews then explore what the grid means to leading contemporary graphic designers. Essays by an architect, a musicologist, a screenwriter and a Web designer deal with the grid as a universal idea; a step-by-step look at the mathematical precision of QuarkXPress reveals the digital grid. Provocatively, the book closes with a discussion of the implications for grid-bound design of the new CAD/CAM technologies. Do they spell the end of the grid as we know it? The Designer and the Grid is richly illustrated, with paired visuals showing designs both with and without their underlying grids. The favourite grids of top designers, including Simon Esterson, Vaughan Oliver, Ellen Upton and Muller & Hesse are also featured in this unique book.
Lucienne Roberts established her design studio, sans+baum, in London in 1997, aiming to work on projects outside the purely commercial. Clients have included the ICA, Sadler's Wells, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, The British Council, Phaidon Press and the identity for the Arts Council's Architecture Week. Lucienne also teaches at the London College of Printing. Julia Thrift is a well-established design and architecture journalist who contributes to many magazine and book publications, including Blueprint magazine. She is also Head of Programmes at the Civic Trust in London.
