Level Up Your Designs with Aligned Grids 🚀 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00If you're a serious graphic designer,
2. 0:01then you probably have this book. This
3. 0:03book is called Raster Systems or Grid
4. 0:06Systems in English. It's all about how
5. 0:08to design to the grid. And this is the
6. 0:10Bible for anyone who wants to learn
7. 0:12graphic design and how to grid things.
8. 0:15But the problem is most of the times
9. 0:17when we create grids as graphic
10. 0:18designers like this, it isn't perfect.
11. 0:21You see, we have a modular grid here.
12. 0:23However, the baseline grid, which is
13. 0:24where text sits and how we line
14. 0:26everything up, is not lined up. This
15. 0:28leads us to this website here where we
16. 0:30can actually create grids like so. And
17. 0:33everything from the baseline grid is in
18. 0:36alignment. And you can download this.
19. 0:38I'll link this in the description. But
20. 0:40many times when graphic designers are
21. 0:41creating grids for their work, they
22. 0:43can't seem to make it fully harmonious.
23. 0:45It never seems to work. If I zoom in,
24. 0:47you'll see here we have a modular grid,
25. 0:50but when I zoom in, we have a baseline
26. 0:52grid. This is where text is supposed to
27. 0:54sit. So how then do we make it so that
28. 0:56this modular grid is perfectly in line
29. 0:58with the baseline grid giving us
30. 1:00mathematically perfect or nearperfect
31. 1:03grid systems that we can use in our
32. 1:06design work like so where everything
33. 1:08just flows and is harmonious. Now the
34. 1:10problem with grids is that most of the
35. 1:12time when we create them they look
36. 1:14great. However, they don't align to the
37. 1:17baseline grid which is this guy here.
38. 1:20It's all these blue lines and it's
39. 1:22switched on in Adobe Inesign like so.
40. 1:24Well, in this video brought to you by
41. 1:25Squarespace, I'm going to be showing you
42. 1:27how to create the grids that you see in
43. 1:29this book and how you can make them
44. 1:32mathematically perfect to create a
45. 1:34harmonious system.
46. 1:39Okay, first of all, I'm going to create
47. 1:41a new document. I'm just going to go
48. 1:42ahead and create an A4 document. Make it
49. 1:45landscape. And I'm going to switch off
50. 1:46facing pages. This just means it's one
51. 1:48page. If you're new to Inesign, it is an
52. 1:51editorial design program. So, you can do
53. 1:53things like this, create PDFs. This is
54. 1:56all about getting the design of like
55. 1:59magazines and things like that. So, you
56. 2:01have good editorial design. Okay, we've
57. 2:03got our blank document here. If I press
58. 2:05W, you get this sort of preview panel
59. 2:07there. Easy enough. The first trick
60. 2:09before doing anything with a grid is
61. 2:10working out the size of our text and
62. 2:13leading. So, I'm just going to draw a
63. 2:15box like so and press this nifty fill
64. 2:17with placeholder button. Nice. Okay,
65. 2:19we've got text. I know I want my font to
66. 2:22be Helvetica New. So, we're going to go
67. 2:23Helvetica New regular. That's way too
68. 2:25large. I want it to be body text size.
69. 2:27So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to
70. 2:28scale it down. I think that is a bit too
71. 2:31small. I'm going to bring it up to
72. 2:32eight. Let's fill it with more
73. 2:33placeholder text there. That looks good.
74. 2:36Now, the trick with body text size isn't
75. 2:39getting it very small. It's actually
76. 2:40making it very readable. And there's a
77. 2:42few ways we can ensure that this is
78. 2:44readable to the average audience. What
79. 2:46I'm looking for is creating a column.
80. 2:47And I want to make sure that my column
81. 2:49has about seven to nine words on average
82. 2:52on each line. And the way that I do this
83. 2:55is easily go up to window down to info
84. 2:58and it will give me this little box
85. 2:59here. So when I click on a random line,
86. 3:02it will tell me hopefully how many words
87. 3:04there are on each line. So 7 to nine
88. 3:07words is what we're looking for. This
89. 3:09means that the reader doesn't have to
90. 3:11like read a long piece of information
91. 3:14like this where it becomes hard to read
92. 3:16but they are guided down. Okay. Now the
93. 3:18next thing once you've worked out the
94. 3:20sizing we work out the leading which is
95. 3:22this panel here. This panel is very
96. 3:24important. A lot of the time it will be
97. 3:26automatically there but I don't like to
98. 3:28do that and it's not a good idea. What
99. 3:30we want to do is increase the leading to
100. 3:32the point of where it easily flows where
101. 3:34it looks good to the reader. Something
102. 3:36else I'm going to do is turn off hyphen
103. 3:388, which makes life easier for me. And
104. 3:39I'm going to increase the leading. Make
105. 3:41sure I can read this really nicely.
106. 3:44Yeah, that looks good. So, right now,
107. 3:46what we have is Helvetica new regular in
108. 3:48eight points and 11 point leading.
109. 3:51Leting is the space in between each
110. 3:53line. And it's really important to get
111. 3:54this right cuz everything is actually
112. 3:56based on the leading of our body text.
113. 3:59Okay, next thing I'm going to go to
114. 4:00preferences. So, command or control K.
115. 4:02I'm going to go into units and
116. 4:04increments and I'm going to change it
117. 4:05for myself to points. The next step is
118. 4:08we need to create the baseline grid. So,
119. 4:10if you wanted to know the baseline grid
120. 4:12is here, this button there. If you zoom
121. 4:14out, you won't see it. If you zoom in,
122. 4:16you will. So, if you can't see it, just
123. 4:18zoom in and you'll see that it will
124. 4:19appear. You'll notice that our text
125. 4:21isn't on the baseline grid. It's kind of
126. 4:23just everywhere. So, what we want to do
127. 4:25is select our text and press this button
128. 4:28under the paragraph section, and it will
129. 4:30force it to the baseline. and it looks
130. 4:32good. However, it isn't correct. And
131. 4:34that's because our margins, which is
132. 4:36this pink line, isn't aligned to the
133. 4:39baseline grid. We need to make sure that
134. 4:41the margins are in line with it. So, one
135. 4:44thing we need to do is make our baseline
136. 4:45grid the same as the leading. So, we do
137. 4:48that by going into preferences again.
138. 4:50So, command or control K. We're going to
139. 4:52go to grids. I'm going to change my
140. 4:54color to like drag. And then what I'm
141. 4:57going to do is we're going to create an
142. 4:58increment not every 12 points but 11
143. 5:01points because that is what our leading
144. 5:03is for our body text. We're going to
145. 5:05decrease the view threshold so I can see
146. 5:07this more often for you to 12.5. We're
147. 5:09also going to press the start at zero
148. 5:11points. We want it to start at the top
149. 5:13of the page to make things easier. Once
150. 5:15we've got that, press okay. And you'll
151. 5:17see that it changes dramatically. So our
152. 5:20body text now is aligned to the baseline
153. 5:22grid. If it wasn't, it would look like
154. 5:24this. If it is, it looks kind of similar
155. 5:26though. It's just moving it ever so
156. 5:27slightly. And it works well because now
157. 5:30anytime we create text like so, the text
158. 5:32will be automatically aligned to the
159. 5:34baseline grid, which means that all the
160. 5:36lines of text are in one line. Perfect.
161. 5:39That's exactly what we want. Okay. The
162. 5:41only problem what we have now is our
163. 5:43margins. They don't look correct. So,
164. 5:45what we need to do is keep that number
165. 5:4611 in our minds cuz that is the main
166. 5:49number that we'll be working with all
167. 5:51the way. and we're going to redefine the
168. 5:52basic paragraph style to save that
169. 5:54style. So, what we want to do is on the
170. 5:57top margin here, we want to make sure
171. 5:58this top margin or all the margins fit
172. 6:00together. So, an easy way of doing this
173. 6:02is by just clicking on your board, go up
174. 6:04to the margins, and we're going to say
175. 6:0711 * 3 points. When we do that, it will
176. 6:12bring our margins at the top and at the
177. 6:14side three times the increments. And
178. 6:17that creates the margin there, and it's
179. 6:19perfectly on that baseline. However, we
180. 6:21have a problem down here. This isn't in
181. 6:24line. Now, this is where people get kind
182. 6:26of shook up with this sort of thing.
183. 6:28Now, if we look at the bottom here,
184. 6:29though, it is not in line. Now, this is
185. 6:31where people struggle in in design and
186. 6:33to create the grids, but I'm going to
187. 6:34show you a really easy method that I
188. 6:36found on other videos and from other
189. 6:38designers around there. This method is
190. 6:41so easy. What we're going to do is draw
191. 6:42a shape that is from this baseline to
192. 6:45that baseline. Make sure it is the
193. 6:47shape, not the stroke. and we're going
194. 6:48to go to our info panel, which is really
195. 6:50useful. We're going to take the height
196. 6:52into accordance. So 1.276.
197. 6:56So with that, I can now take the margins
198. 6:58and we can add or subtract 1.276.
199. 7:03So with that, I'm going to go up to the
200. 7:05margins here. Make sure that this is
201. 7:06unchecked cuz we only want the bottom
202. 7:08margin to be affected. We're going to go
203. 7:10plus 1.276.
204. 7:12Press okay. And you'll notice that our
205. 7:15margin line at the bottom is perfectly
206. 7:17in line with the baseline grid, which is
207. 7:19great. Exactly what we want. Amazing.
208. 7:22So, we have our margins and we have our
209. 7:24baseline grid working. Now, it's time to
210. 7:26create the grids. But before I do that,
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252. 8:52we've got the margins. We need to create
253. 8:54some modular grids now. But first, I'm
254. 8:56going to go and change the color of my
255. 8:58guides by going to ruler guides and I'm
256. 9:00going to change it to Fiesta because
257. 9:01it's easier for you to see on video.
258. 9:03Before we create the guides, we need to
259. 9:04work out how many lines there are here
260. 9:06because we need to find the factor. We
261. 9:08need to be able to divide this by a
262. 9:10certain number for it to work. So, I'm
263. 9:12going to click here, select all, and in
264. 9:15my info panel, it will tell me there's
265. 9:1748 lines, which is great. Now, if I type
266. 9:19into Google, which is what I do for
267. 9:21maths, what does 48 divide by? It will
268. 9:24give me the factors of 48, which is
269. 9:25great. We get 1 2 3 4 6 8 12 16 24 48.
270. 9:29Now, sometimes you'll get numbers that
271. 9:31don't work well. And with that, that
272. 9:33means that you should change your leting
273. 9:34size and your margin sizes too to get
274. 9:37some good numbers there. I'm going to
275. 9:38choose number eight and 12. I want this
276. 9:40grid to be 8 and 12. But I could choose
277. 9:42four and six. I could choose 2 and 4. I
278. 9:45could choose 16 and 24 or 12 and 24. Any
279. 9:48of these will work. So now that we know
280. 9:49that, what we're going to do is we're
281. 9:51going to go to layout. We're going to
282. 9:52create some guides. And I'm going to
283. 9:53show you something really interesting.
284. 9:55We're going to have eight rows. We're
285. 9:56going to make sure that our gutter is
286. 9:58not 12 points, but 11 points, which is
287. 9:59our leading size. And then we're going
288. 10:01to say 12 columns with 11 points there.
289. 10:04We're going to make sure the fit guides
290. 10:05option is to margins. And when I press
291. 10:07okay, you'll notice it is still not
292. 10:09aligned, which is frustrating for
293. 10:11everyone. It's pretty annoying. Well,
294. 10:13the reason why this happens is because
295. 10:14we have an extra gutter in there. We
296. 10:17have an extra gutter line happening. We
297. 10:19need to take one away. And we can do
298. 10:21this quite easily by just changing the
299. 10:24margin slightly. Watch. So, you see we
300. 10:26have a margin of three at the top, kind
301. 10:28of three at the bottom. For this to
302. 10:30work, all we need to do is decide which
303. 10:32margin we want to increase or decrease.
304. 10:34I'm going to decrease the bottom down
305. 10:36here. And it's really easy. All I have
306. 10:38to do is go to the margins bit here.
307. 10:40Make sure it's not linked. And I'm going
308. 10:42to go to the end. Remember the lead
309. 10:44size. We're going to go minus 11 points.
310. 10:46And all we're going to do is we're going
311. 10:48to add to this margin at the bottom to
312. 10:50make it smaller. And all we're going to
313. 10:52do is we're going to go plus 11 points.
314. 10:55And there you go. It is decreased the
315. 10:57margin. moved it up slightly by one. So,
316. 11:00we're missing one of those gutters. I'm
317. 11:02going to move this up as well. So, now
318. 11:04when we go to layout, create guides,
319. 11:08we're going to press eight for the
320. 11:09number of rows. Make sure it's 11
321. 11:11points. We're going to go 12 and 11
322. 11:13points here and press okay. We have a
323. 11:16perfectly, and I mean perfect grid right
324. 11:20there. Very nice, very modular. I'm
325. 11:22going to go to view. We're going to go
326. 11:23to guides. We're going to lock the
327. 11:25guides. Now I can add my text in here
328. 11:28like so. There's a lot of line work
329. 11:30here, but do not fret. Add some
330. 11:32placeholder. There we go. I'm actually
331. 11:33going to move this text box down ever so
332. 11:36slightly. And now we can have some
333. 11:38columns if we wanted to. We could do
334. 11:39this. We can increase this fill it. We
335. 11:42can change the text frame to 11 points
336. 11:44in width and create a couple of text
337. 11:46frames or we can create three if we
338. 11:48wanted to. And now we have a perfectly
339. 11:50aligned grid where it works all the way
340. 11:53there. And the great thing about this is
341. 11:55that we can actually add images and
342. 11:57everything else that we need. Like so.
343. 11:58Okay, the final thing. How do we make it
344. 12:00so we have titles like these? What do we
345. 12:03do with these type systems? Well, one
346. 12:05way I like to do this personally is by
347. 12:08creating a text box. Let's just call it
348. 12:09title heading, just some random words.
349. 12:12We're going to create a new paragraph
350. 12:13style. What I'm going to do is instantly
351. 12:15go to my text here, and I'm just going
352. 12:17to times it by two. So, 16. And I'm
353. 12:20going to change it from regular to
354. 12:22medium. And then as well as that, if we
355. 12:24need to, we can detach it from the
356. 12:26baseline grid if we need to. So we can
357. 12:28like move it to wherever we need to. But
358. 12:30I don't need to do that for here because
359. 12:31right here, I can just add it here. Make
360. 12:34sure it fits to the grid. And from here,
361. 12:36what we can do is add some frames for
362. 12:38some images. We can add some more text
363. 12:40down here. I can add this juicy picture
364. 12:42of me and copy this to show the effect
365. 12:44of what we're having. And we have
366. 12:46perfectly aligned work all the way
367. 12:49through. So, that is how you actually
368. 12:51create a mathematically perfect grid. If
369. 12:53you enjoyed this video, please press
370. 12:54that subscribe button because I'm going
371. 12:56to be posting more about little tips
372. 12:58like this to help any new or advanced
373. 13:00graphic designer out there do better in
374. 13:03their design work. Thanks for watching
375. 13:04and I'll see you in the next video. See
376. 13:06you soon. Goodbye.
377. 13:16[Music]
378. 13:18I don't know.
379. 13:23[Music]