HISTORY:

Grid structures are not just manifested in Western contexts, but all over the world.
The way we think of grids in design, it is manifesting Western ideas of rationality and thought (the enlightenment).

MY INTRODUCTION TO GRIDS:

a 20th-century understanding and process of grids (how to generate them and use them).
Muller-Brockmann
Grids = modernist manifestation
Grids for design of printed matter (posters, books, …)

Organization > Chaos (life, vibrancy)
Control > irrational
Hierarchy > Singular entry
Mathematical
“Universal Validity” —Josef muller Brockman
Neutrality
Singular
Authority
Stiffness —Weingart
Dictates an order > whose order?
A codified system of standards (whose standards? the status quo).

GRIDS NOW/ TEACHING:

Open, playful structures
A grid, is a frame, a structure that can be individually developed by YOU the designer. You help us to engage with the work through your point of view.
Open
Loose
Multiple entry points that allow viewers many points to enter the work and interpret / Multiplicity
Organic.
Plurality.
Weingart: “get away from the stagnation, sterility, and anonymity.”
Weigart: “turn the black page into a printed page”
An open game (structure) that invites.
Generous.
Experimentation
Iterative
The Reader “plays” (Barthes/ Eco “open model of the text.”)

GOAL:

Develop YOUR way to design open grids/structures that engage the content and the viewers/readers to openly engage with a design that functions in the context for which you are making work.