Grid Deconstruction

 

 

"As the word itself implies, the purpose of deconstructing is to deform a rationally structured space so that the elements within that space are forced into new relationships: or, simply put, beginning with a grid and altering it to see what happens"

 My assigned section is taken from the non-structural approaches section found on pg. 122 of Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop by Timothy Samara.

There is method to our madness; the way we break the grid gives us permission to have fun with our layout and typography. The author reminds us that we are living in an environment that is constantly changing, and the way we gather information will greatly increase as we are presented with new ways to obtain it. Such as the involvement of media, we learn how to follow and interact with new types of design that finds it's way into our line of vision only to become accustomed to it.

The poster (above left) is a design by David Carson that follows the same rules of building a well-structured layout, only to watch it collapse as you basically play around with the elements within it. With this said, the use of overlapping, size, texture, and spacing between letter forms seems to be the most prominent methods used to make this design successful.

THINK

I found the use of layout here to be really gripping. It is evident to me and probably anyone within the first glance that the designer has set up the information to form the shape of the human brain. What I like most about it is that the only word legible from a distance is 'THINK"! Brilliant because its a "CAT", Call to Action. Which is extremely hard to ignore, however the designer hasn't placed much emphasis on anything other text, giving the reader free range to roam the image for other words that may trigger their imagination and curiosity. 

(Image from http://ten0design.com)

Conceptual or Pictorial Allusion

 

 Conceptual or Pictorial Allusion

This section talks about designing without the structure of a grid. In this excerpt, they want to show you how to convey your design though ideas that the text is talking about. For instance, the books states, “text and images might sink underwater or float around like objects caught in a flood. Even though no grid is present, sequential compositions are given a kind of unity because of the governing idea.”.

This type of structure is meant to give the reader the feeling of what the words are saying without looking at an image after or before you read the text.

 

"A personal narrative about a near-death incident begins with a straight-forward column structure that is deconstructed in successive studies to evoke the motion of flood waters and the desperate nature of the situation."

Do you think the image is making you feel like the description of the story above?

Spontaneous Optical Composition

"Verbal or conceptual cues within the content can also be used to break a grid structure. The natural rhythm of spoken language, for example, is often used as a guide for changing weight, size, color, or alignment among lines type; louder or “faster” words may be set in larger or bolder type or in italics, corresponding to stresses and lulls in actual speech. Giving a “voice” to visual language can help alter the structure of a text by pushing words out of paragraphs or forcing modules or columns into relationships where the natural logic of the writing creates a visual order." - Excerpt 

My section mostly talks about how you should try and "Break the Grid" and make the text have as much emotion as the actual content with focusing on rhythm of how you make the text flow. But that doesn't mean to go wild and have the text not be able to lose it's meaning or to be so all over the place that you cannot find the start and end. The book regarding too much tweaking and messing around says "Although generally this would interfere with reading, in some cases the resulting ambiguity may be appropriate to the content of the text". So basically it really just depends on what your content is. IF the content calls for some over the top breaking the grid and sizes and weights, go for it! If not, question what other options may be more beneficial to the content to get the message across. Just because you can't break the grid doesn't mean you still can't make something interesting!

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Optical Composition relies highly on hierarchy within the space. 

David Carson is known for his successful optical compositions:

See how he uses the Plus symbol as a visual focal point for the whole page but still allows it to make sense to the content of the text? Even with the broken spaces in between letters of a word you can still understand what is being said, and the spaces give an interesting effect throughout the page. The text is all spontaneous yet you still can make clear sense as to what is being said; this is a perfect example of showing you that you can be highly spontaneous and break some grid structures and still have a successful design in the end, you just need to know how to be cautious!

Chance Operations

Chance Operations

Hey Guys!
So I had to research and summarize Chance operations on page 127.  Its basically “sketch” materials for a deconstruction. It’s the dissection of an image across multiple pages of a book. The decision of where the dissection is made is at random without regard to the composition of the image. Bringing chance into your design will help see the material more clearly, it will allow you to organize it in a less predictable way.

Thoughts? Questions?