Grid Systems in Graphic Design
by Josef Müller-Brockmann · first published 1981
79% recommend21% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Authoritative Swiss-style guide to building a grid and fitting content to it, with worked examples and practical explanations. Suits developers and designers wanting layout and typography grounding.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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…work you really just need to understand typography well. That might not be a popular viewpoint around here, but I encourage you to consider some of these references. I recommend Josef Muller-Brockmann's Grid Systems in Graphic Design: http://www.amazon.com/Grid-Systems-Graphic-Design-Communicat... or Emil Ruder's Typographie: http://www.amazon.com/Typographie-Manual-Design-Emil-Ruder/d.... There are many, many other good resources…
on “Ask HN: Front-end “design patterns”?” ↗> Purchasing my copy of grid Systems in Graphic Design, by Josef Muller-Brockmann, was the best money I've ever spent on a design text. I was a relatively seasoned designer with 6 years of pro-experience when I was fortunate enough to find a copy of this…
on “Bootstrap 2.2.0 released” ↗For starters, read "Grid Systems in Graphic Design" by Joseph Muller-Brockmann and "The Elements of Typographic Style" by Robert Bringhurst. After that, practice all the time. Do a ton of self-initiated projects or design for friends pro-bono. Always…
on “Ask HN: How can I get better at design?” ↗Great designs are almost always bespoke: created for a specific task of a website. However, a great generic design is generally based on a grid. Check out Grid systems in Graphic Design by Müller-Brockmann.
on “Web Designers - What elements make for great designs?” ↗…come from the days of typesetting and the subsequent studies of typographers and graphic designers in the 20th century. If you haven't already, I highly recommend that you read Josef Mueller-Brockmann's Grid Systems in Graphic Design/Raster Systeme fuer die Visuele Gestaltung; the content is really right up your alley. Mueller-Brockmann gives the "rules" of typography, then gives examples of what happens when one deviates from those…
on “Optimal Characters Per Line” ↗…Principles of Design http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design_elements_and_principles Anything you can find by Paul Rand. Some of his books are out of print, but if you're creative you can find them on the web. Grid Systems In Graphic Design by Josef Muller-Brockmann http://www.amazon.com/Systems-Graphic-Systeme-Visuele-Gestal...
on “Learning about design / web design principles” ↗…facade on your poorly designed app and call it done. People will be impressed by it, but struggle to use it. I would recommend finding physical copies of Josef Mueller Brockmann's books, especially "Grid Systems in Graphic Design" and "The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems". They are both old (pre-DTP) but have great basic advice about how to design pages.
on “Whitespace killed an enterprise app” ↗I appreciate how the author emphasizes attention much like how Josef Muller-Brockmann emphasizes space in his Grid Systems in Graphic Design. Typefaces are strange. Choosing the right one sometimes feels like a battle that's a part of the greater war that is fashioning content in a way that is tasteful and wise.
on “Why Does Typography Matter?” ↗…find exceptions to this (although in many cases they will be an example of a designer breaking the rules because they know them so well), but most design students will be familiar with that approach. "Grid Systems in Graphic Design" (1981) is one of the reference texts on this subject, if you're interested in getting deeper. The other commenters say, in reply to your question, that it was just for formatting HTML, and for web documents…
on “CSS Grid for UI Layouts” ↗Looks like an absolutely delicious grid system! I enjoyed your talk on abstracting the grid into it's own layer by adding extra markup. I was wondering if you've read Grid Systems in Graphic Design?
on “Show HN: csswizardry-grids—Simple, ‘semantic’, nestable, responsive grid system” ↗…[motgp]) 5. There are some books you can look at, i would probably recommend the following: Armin Hofmann's Graphic Design Manual, Emil Ruder's Typographie: a manual of design, Josef Mueller-Brockman's Grid Systems in Graphic Design, Robert Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style. Ellen Lupton's Thinking with Type and John Kane's Type Primer are good intro resources. Also, these are interesting books: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joekral/sets/72157594264845751/...…
on “Ask HN: Learning Web Design” ↗once you know how to use the tools, it is good to learn some theory... for layouts check out Grid Systems in Graphic Design, it gives you a very Swiss approach for building a grid and then fitting content to it. Khoi Vinh is another guy to look up, he heads up design for nytimes.com and is a huge proponent of using grids…
on “Ask HN: How to learn the art of web design?” ↗…that governs what people find engaging and attractive. I'd suggest starting with 'Universal Principles of Design', it's written in a very easy to digest manner, but isn't dumbed down. Then move on to 'Grid Systems in Graphic Design'. These two should give you enough grounding to 'prettify' for simple projects.
on “Ask HN: What "Hello World" is for programmers, _____ is for designers” ↗…not necessarily out of date, and the writing style is very helpful since he includes examples and explanations of how to apply the concepts practically. If you are going to read them I would recommend "Grid Systems in Graphic Design" and "The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems". "History of the Poster" is worth getting too. Make sure to get them as books, not PDFs. His lessons about margins and font size make a lot more sense…
on “Sublime Text 3 now has font ligature support” ↗Don't Make Me Think be Steve Krugg,Grid systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller Brockman, Designing with Grids by Mark Boulton, Any of Ellen Lupton's Type Design books. All light reads except Josef's.
on “Show HN: Wey – A fast, open-source Slack desktop app” ↗