Description:

‘Horizontal lines and vertical lines’ was developed in response to the 2024 ISTD brief ‘The Line’—a broad invitation to explore any aspects of the line, metaphorical or literal. It is an introduction to, and celebration of, the typographic grid aimed at designers starting out on their typographic journey. It showcases the role that the lines of a grid play for a designer, and how the use of the grid has changed over time.

Constructed of horizontal and vertical lines, typographic grids create structure and order within design layouts. The book pays homage to the simple but vital linear scaffold of the grid. Their influence is clearly discernible in a well-designed piece of work, its physical traces—the lines themselves—generally do not remain visible to the naked eye. My strategy was to make a book that made these lines visible in early sections and as the reader becomes more knowledgeable through their interactions with the content, the lines ‘fade’ so they exist only in the reader-designer’s analytical eye.

Inspired by the classic modernist designs such as Josef Müller-Brockmann, Armin Hofmann, Emil Ruder and Wim Crouwel the book employs minimal colour, and strong use of typography. The format and cover give subtle nods to Josef Müller-Brockmann’s seminal 'Grid Systems in Graphic Design' as an indication that the audience are now joining this design-literate 'in group'.

The transparent dust jacket sports grid lines printed on it, its influence to be seen while highlighting that the lines do not appear in the final design. The grid lines are literally visible on the pages of the initial chapters of the book, lifting the lid and showing how the lines support the structure of the design. By chapter two the lines shift onto tracing paper, making the grid visible but showing that these lines do not carry through tangibly to the printed page. By chapter three, the grid lines barely appear on the page as the grid is talked about in the wider context of art and design. By chapter four, ‘Breaking the grid’, there is no grid used or seen. This chapter and its associated layout explore deconstructing the grid to deform a rationally structured space so that the elements within that space are forced into new relationships.

The book aims to educate, to engage, and to honour the grid.