Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
BACKGROUND
The grid as we know it today is rooted in the earliest written forms,
from columnar cuneiform tablets impressed by the Mesopotamians
as early as 3000
BCE
, to hieroglyphic writing on papyrus (see Figs.
1-5 and 1-8).
The mechanization of printing in Europe during the fifteenth
century led to structural conventions and typographic principles that
have survived for centuries. The architecture of movable type and the
mechanics of letterpress printing yielded rectilinear structures—text
set into blocks framed by margins. Gutenberg's forty-two-line Bible was
Europe's irst typographic book; other similarly structured topics were
created during the Renaissance in Germany, France, and Italy (see Figs.
1-38, 1-49, and 1-59).
The development of the modern grid cannot be attributed to
a single individual or to an accidental discovery. It is the result
of many pioneering efforts, including experiments by renegade
designers associated with the movements of Futurism, Dadaism,
Constructivism, and de Stijl, breakthroughs initiated at the Bauhaus,
and the functionalist works and writings of Jan Tschichold (Fig.
4-1
).
The grid finally emerged as a programmatic system of mathematical
precision in Switzerland during the 1950s. Among others, designer
Max Bill embraced absolute order in his work. During the last half
of the twentieth century, the typographic grid achieved universal
acceptance as a visual organizational tool.
Now, grids are ubiquitous carriers of information, to the degree
that we are not consciously aware of them on a daily basis. Yet the
grid, artifice of time and space, is woven deeply into our subconscious.
Grids serve as the underlying structure for modeling and archiving
human thought, interactions, and events.
4-1
In 1925, Jan Tschichold designed this cover for the
journal
Typographische Mitteilungen
. His twenty-four-
page insert for this journal presented and advocated
asymmetrical typography to its readers. This marked a
movement toward a new language of typographic form
and structure. (Designer: Jan Tschichold)
