The Grid: History, Use, and Meaning

Abstract

H The grid1 has played a central role in the development and consolidation of the modern movement in twentieth-century graphic design. Due to its ostensible use during this period as a compositional design matrix for controlling the placement of typography and imagery, the modernist grid was present in the finished design. Consequently, its symbolic aspect is not generally recognized or even suspected. Though equally obscure in significance, the contrasting decorative role of the grid as a prominent piece of visual iconography in postmodernist graphic design more readily admits of a possible symbolic function. To understand these symbolic functions it will be necessary to first examine some key junctures in the pre-twentieth-century development of both the grid and, in some cases, its individual elements: the point (or coordinate), the axial line, and their mode of interaction. In terms of the impact the changing values of the grid's constructive elements have on the meaning of the grid itself, a structural typology of the grid reveals four basic grid subforms: coordinate-based, intersection-based, module-based, and linebased (figure 1). Although identical in appearance, the specific valuation of each element distinguishes in turn each of these subforms and is directly related to its symbolic content. Historically, these subforms are found to function in pairs and thus jointly to constitute two major forms. The first major form will be referred to as point-based and includes the coordinateand intersection-based subforms. The second major form will be referred to asfield-based and includes the moduleand line-based subforms.