This time a series of 4 grid layouts set on a 210mm x 210mm page. As always, they are Illustrator CS4 EPS files.

The following grid structures are included: 2×1, 2×3, 3×3 and 5×1. They have 15mm borders / margins on all edges and all gutters are 7mm. Enjoy.
Download them here

Grid Templates by Flush Left is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

The list is endless to be fair, there are commonly accepted names and terminologies, and there are those that have been invented and over time, have become commonplace. For the purpose of the reference part of the site, we shall leave the naming thing at the 2 posts.

It’s for my favourite grid structure, the 3×5 grid, and is fitted to an A4 page. It has a 15mm border side and top, 20mm bottom, with 4mm gutters. Enjoy.
Download it here

Grid Templates by Flush Left is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

This post was inspired heavily by Jim Williams, design lecturer at Staffodshire Uni, thankyou Jim.

The first post of the year will start a series of posts, which can be added to and used as a source of typographic reference. Before I start though, I make no apologies for potential incorrect apostrophe placement! So, without further ado, welcome to…

Typography Reference 101: 1. The Basics

1. Differentiate your levels of read with the key elements:
   Size
   Weight
   Colour
   Position
   There is no need to introduce more fonts than is necessary, learn to put yourself in control of the type, not the other way around.
2. In a piece of design (editorial excluded) try to limit the amount of different font families to 2 ideally, but if it’s essential 3 families can be used at a push.
3. Set leading for bulk text at 3 points above your character size. Because fonts are designed differently (12 pt Meta may be a different physical height to 12 pt Perpetua), this may prove visually uncomfortable. If this is the case, use your designer powers to increase the leading by eye / hand manually.
4. Personal rule of thumb: when using sans serif fonts do not italicize words – it looks tasteless when set in sans serif.
5. When setting the weight of a font, use the family’s font weight not the character palette where possible. Character palettes are for lazy designers and they never represent the way the font should appear naturally in its’ proper weight. ie. use Arial Bold, not Arial with bold selected in the character palette.

But what fun would it be if I was not to make you wander half way around the web to find it?

Click here to see the full typeface on my design portfolio site

… this looks fantastic!