One place to easily pick up grid systems is in Book design. Like anything, there are guidelines and rules to follow just like when you design for logo, packaging, mobile, or web. It still holds the potential to have fun with it. We look at layouts every day, everywhere. You may never notice it but the method lies in the grid that gets set up in indesign and used as the foundation for where everything will go and how far apart things will be in spacing. The fun part comes when you learn the rules and then you know how to break them.

Book design is easily one of my favorite ways to design. The layout designing of books is what brought me into the design world. Years ago in high school I did yearbook and it was fun coming up with a concept, planning, teaching, executing the concept through out a 367 page book with about 16-18 staffers. But the best part for me came when I sat down to come up with style sheet for the book, colors, and templates for each section of the book. That is when I realized I could design for hours on end. There are several types of books and sizes and all of that gets taken into to consideration when designing and coming up with a concept. There is endless possibilities in what the final design of a book can be. For example the cover could be embossed, dembossed, foiled, texturized through materials like linen, or leather, softcover, or hardcover. It could be bound together through different techniques too such as, saddle stitched, threaded, wire, or perfect binding. Though sometimes the ideas and what I want to be done can end up being limited because it is not possible when it comes to the abilities of a printer company printing it. Book design can happen in many different ways, printed by a company and bound together by machine or can print and bind it yourself. It is all up to whatever works best for your concept and the amount needed production wise.

Here is a cool video of the process of bookbinding some people still use today.

Enjoy,

Andrea