We introduce a new method to optimize the required area, minimum angle, and number of bends of planar graph drawings on a grid. The main tool is a new type of ordering on the vertices and faces of triconnected planar graphs. Using this method linear-time-and-space algorithms can be designed for many graph-drawing problems. Our main results are as follows: Every triconnected planar graphG admits a planar convex grid drawing with straight lines on a (2n−4)×(n−2) grid, wheren is the number of vertices. Every triconnected planar graph with maximum degree 4 admits a planar orthogonal grid drawing on ann×n grid with at most [3n/2]+4 bends, and ifn>6, then every edge has at most two bends. Every planar graph with maximum degree 3 admits a planar orthogonal grid drawing with at most [n/2]+1 bends on an [n/2]×[n/2] grid. Every triconnected planar graphG admits a planar polyline grid drawing on a (2n−6)×(3n−9) grid with minimum angle larger than 2/d radians and at most 5n−15 bends, withd the maximum degree. These results give in some cases considerable improvements over previous results, and give new bounds in other cases. Several other results, e.g., concerning visibility representations, are included.