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Before we dive in the basics of Layout and Composition, take a look at how NOT to do Graphic Design:
In this session, we’ll cover Layout and Composition introducing the basics of Graphic Design. We will look at layout and composition elements, principles and grid systems.
Layout and Composition are the foundation of good visual communication. It is considered effective layout and composition when it attracts attention, it communicates a clear message and has a transparent narrative and good storytelling, giving your design structure.
This session is divided in two parts: part one it’s about understanding all the fundamentals of layout and composition while part two is putting everything into practice and working on a live project brief.
Strong layout and composition it’s always used to tell a story. Bad layout doesn’t work when it’s messy, clattered and confusing. The layout and composition key elements are: colour, leading lines, shapes and texture.
Colour is an important element in any given form of visual communication. Warm colours advance in space optically and cool colours fall back. Certain colour combinations can create a visual vibration – like for example red and purple; typically, this is not considered a good mix, but sometimes visual vibration is needed as part of your composition! Bright colours attract attention and viewers usually like them! While on the other side subtle tones convey sophistication.
Colour can be used to draw the viewer into the piece you are designing, and to differentiate space on the composition. It can be used to divide a headline from the body copy, or a sidebar from the main text. It is also frequently used as a code to help the viewer identify content, by colour coding information, for example. Colour can also help defining the individual elements on a page and clarify information, this is especially helpful with complex data, charts and infographics.
When looking at a visual communication design piece, viewers naturally try to apply order and clarity to the piece. Using colour as a tool to guide viewers creates visual interest and adds legibility.
Lines are far more than just dividing graphic elements on your composition. Leading lines guide your audience to various points of information, by positioning and adjusting your leading lines you can not only direct the eye to the focal points of your design but also on how to navigate and read the information as part of the composition.
Graphic Designer Josef Muller-Brockmann’s posters are a great example of using leading lines to create movement, making the layout of the posters dynamic and helping us navigate the information.
To make your design more interesting, dynamic and have added movement to the composition use shapes. Shapes can be simple basic geometric shapes like circles, squares and triangles or organic shapes such as icons, symbols and other illustrative graphics, adding an interesting element to your composition and helping in conveying the message.
You can use shapes to create boxes and form borders on a layout, they are also used to organise, connect or separate different graphic elements or content on the composition. When working on a composition you need to consider how each shape interacts with each other as well and how they all work together and what type of relationship they create on the composition.
Texture is the visual “feel” of a graphic element. Texture enhances the overall appearance of a design, adds character to other elements such as type and artworks, and can serve as a background.
In Graphic Design there are two types of textures: image and pattern texture.
Image texture is created from a combination of organic or geometric shapes and colour. It appears random to create. Image texture are generally linked to nature and they can be environmental, biological or man-made.
Environmental textures are for example: water, sky, wood and sand.
Biological textures are for example: animal prints, feathers and skin.
Man-made textures are for example: paintings, illustrations, paint-strokes and paper.
Pattern texture are also generated from organic and geometric shapes, but the difference to image texture is that pattern texture is manufactured. While image textures are random, patterns are systematic and methodical.
Repeating a formation of shape and colour will design a pattern texture and these are all about being recognisable for their repeating and precise structure.
Visual communication's job is to attract attention, conveying an intended message and in general good storytelling in a visual format, that may result in a poster, a book, a website or a social media graphic for example.
We looked at the fundamental graphic elements, and now we are going to explore the layout and composition principles, to better understand and communicate with your audience and to strengthen the visual communication of your composition.
There are seven basic principles to keep in mind while working with Layout and Composition:
- White Space
- Alignment
- Contrast
- Repetition
- Balance
- Scale
- Hierarchy
White Space
White space helps to define and to separate different sections within every composition, it gives your graphic elements and content, area to breathe, to have a non-cluttered and overall messy layout.
But what exactly is white space? White space is the space that surrounds all the design elements and content part of a composition, and even though it’s called white space it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s white; it can be any texture or any colour.
White space is basically all the area that is free from any content or design elements and it acts as a divider between all the different components and helps your audience identify and navigate relevant information within your design. The more white space you have as part of your composition, the more your content will pop-up!
So, how do we use white space in our designs? First, scale down your graphic elements. By scaling down your imagery, type, graphics etc. you can create some white space around your focal points while staying within the frame of your original composition.
Second, don’t fill up every space with content, white space is not empty space, don’t feel the need to fill any white spaces you have with more content, that will one result in a cluttered composition.
Alignment
Alignment in layout and composition simply means lining up all the content and design elements on the composition in an organised and logical way to create order.
Without consistent alignment your layout will feel disorganised. It’s particularly important to align graphic elements and content providing a connection between the different elements part of your composition.
Alignment creates a sense of order by grouping related graphic elements into a unified composition, when certain design elements are off-grid and not aligned with a specific group, this will stand out and become the most noticeable element on your composition - which could be just your intention!
Contrast
Contrast means having one element that is clearly different from any another element on the composition. Contrast helps attracting attention and creating emphasis.
You can create contrast using a few different strategies, such as using colour, size, shapes or typography. Contrast is also closely connected to hierarchy. Hierarchy helps the viewer navigate your work by using different levels of emphasis and visual hierarchy to guide the eye on the information and how it should be read.
A good way to create contrast in your composition is using scale. Scale your graphic elements up if they are meant to be big, or if they are meant to be the very first part that needs to be seen by your audience. Working with scaling elements up and down it’s your biggest ally in creating effective contrast, make elements so big that they eventually bleed off your composition.
Texture is another way to create tension through the use of strong contrasting textures as part of your composition.
Graphic Design is a utilitarian art which means that it needs to always serve a specific purpose. ‘Form follows function’ means your composition design choices should be determined by its function: what is the key message you are trying to communicate? What do you want your audience to be attracted by? What is the call to action? These questions will help you understand the function of your layout and composition design project.
Contrast can also help you set the visual hierarchy of the information, making it possible to distinguish an object by scaling and creating the graphic elements.
In its most common usage contrast is associated with bold colours, but it can be applied to different graphic elements of your composition, not just colours, such as typography, size and density. Let’s have a look at some of the graphic design components, contrast can be applied to:
The first thing our eye perceives when looking at a visual communication piece is colour, and only after noticing colour our eye notices text and other shapes in the composition.
This is the colour wheel that is used for learning the basics of colour theory. All colours found on the opposite side of the spectrum will create maximum contrast in your composition. These colour combinations are called complimentary.
Complimentary colours are green and red, blue and orange, purple and yellow. When used together in a design and layout composition, these colour combinations are very vibrant and give your design movement.
As complimentary colours are very attention-grabbing, at times they can look a bit too ‘in the face’ and off putting as part of your composition, so it is good practice to tone the brightness of these colours down a bit, and focus mainly on using geometric shapes and typography as your main elements like German design studio Doppelpunkt did in their poster for the Bauhaus-Archiv Museum of Design.
Alternatively, to complimentary colours you can use analogous. Analogous colours sit next to each other on the colour wheel, this combination, helps all your graphic elements to blend with each other, and in this case, contrast can be created adding black and white to the mix.
Creating contrast with typography is one of the most used ways and the simplest approach is by grouping two or more different typographical elements together.
Contrast will help you place emphasis on the important elements of your typographic content, this will ultimately improve the communication of your intended design message.
You can create typography contrast with size, colour, weight and type of font-choice. When wanting to create maximum contrast with typography, work on having a combination of serifs fonts for titles and heading, and sans-serifs for the body-copy. Combining serif and sans-serif typography it’s the most effective type of typography contrast, the two tend to work together well especially at contrasting sizes. We will cover more in depth Typography later in the session!
To increase typography contrast you can also work on the size of your typographic elements. Think boldly while working in contrasting typography size, increasing the size by one point won’t create much of a difference in your composition, you need to have at least 2-to-5 points increase, or even more to allow a much bigger contrast.
You can also archive contrast by changing font weight using italics, medium or bold for example.
When creating contrast one or two ways are more then enough, so if you are changing the size and weight to create the emphasises, you don’t need to apply also the serif and sans-serif rule.
Repetition
Repetition in layout and composition design is repeating and re-using the same or similar design elements consistently throughout the design. You can be repeating a colour, shapes or typography. When used well repetition will make your design harmonious and consistent, creating a feeling of unity.
When using repetition, it’s particularly important being consistent with the repetition of your graphic elements throughout the visual composition, this will make your layout easier to read and understand.
Creating a consistent use of a specific graphic language by using the same colours, typography, shapes and symbols will create an overall recognisable and familiar visual identity making it more memorable and recognisable.
Patterns are the most-simple form of using repetition, as patterns are a certain graphic element or group of elements repeated in a specific sequence. Another way to create repetition is by using a series of similar shapes that change size in a rhythmic way, as you can see on the Beethoven poster by Josef Muller-Brockmann.
The repetition of the geometric shapes in the poster creates an imitation of a moving circle, to replicate Beethoven’s music intensity. Overall, Muller-Brockmann’s Beethoven poster it’s one of the most effective posters in visual communication as it communicates the dramatic nature of Beethoven’s music through simple imagery and the geometric rhythms created by the repetition arrangement of the shapes in the composition.
Using repeating forms will help you direct your viewer, especially when working on multi-pages layout and composition projects, like magazines for example. Using the same graphic elements or shapes throughout your composition will create a recognisable visual language for your audience.
Seeing certain elements multiple times over the composition will guide your viewer in looking for a specific type of information as part the layout.
You can see how Spanish design practice Studio Pattern used repetition on their composition Standard Magazine, through pagination, titles, artworks and colour co-ordination.
Balance
Balance in Graphic Design is the distribution of all graphic elements you are working with in your composition, creating a balanced design layout. You can achieve balance with the element’s placement, correlation and spacing, and it can create a symmetrical or asymmetrical balance.
Symmetrical balance is created distributing all design elements equally on all sides of your composition. Symmetrical balance was particularly popular in the early days of Graphic Design, and although it’s pleasing to the eye, symmetrical balance is also considered static.
Asymmetrical balance is created by having different graphic elements of both sides of your composition, but your layout composition will feel balanced overall. Having a heavy weight element on a side of your composition and multiple lighter elements as a counterpart will result in having a balanced design throughout even if they are not balanced individual elements.
Asymmetrical balance looks less flat, and it also looks more dynamic, it evokes a feeling of movement, energy and modernism.
Scale
Scale is the relationship between two graphic elements or the relationship between design elements and the format of your composition. Scale can help you establish hierarchy and set a focal point on your composition and is useful to emphasise elements by literally showing their relevance.
To have an interesting composition you need to create a sense of movement, dynamism and when possible a sense of dimension. To do this with scale, play around with your elements by bringing some closer to the viewer and moving others away, use both scale and size to create the desired contrast on the page.
Creating a dynamic composition, it’s key to attract attention on the message, a contrast in scale between a very large element and an extremely small one creates a dynamic relationship. Flat layouts and compositions have all elements of the same size, the images are the same as the text blocks, and the same as the shapes and there is no visual hierarchy.
Similarly, to contrast, when working with scale think big! A large element will appear even bigger next to a small one. When scaling up and down your elements instead of scaling 100%, go bolder and try 300%, make it massive, or reduce it so small that is barely visible on the page. How does that work? Always keep in mind your message and intended call to action for the viewer, does this scaling accentuates and helps the information come across better? Then that's how you need to work with scale as part of the composition.
Hierarchy
Hierarchy is the arrangement of graphic elements in their order of importance – or better in the way they are meant to be read and understood. To create visual hierarchy, you need to lay elements out in a logical and strategical way, making sure all the important design elements and content stands out compared to the rest of the elements part of the composition. The principle of hierarchy is closely connected to the principles of contrast and scale as we have already mentioned.
Good hierarchy leads the viewer through the composition, and to create visual order, you need to be familiar and understand the content you are trying to communicate, which is why it’s particularly important to read and understand the information you are working with.
Hierarchy on your layout and composition needs to let your audience know what needs to be seen first, next and last. When looking at a composition, viewers firstly see the biggest images or shapes. Next, in western culture, they start looking left to right reading the largest typography first. The viewer will then make their way down and across the page scanning for smaller and less important information if you have managed to attract their attention.
There are different ways to set-up a clear system of priorities on a page to help the viewer identify the hierarchy of the information, and some of these are:
As mentioned, in western culture we read from left to right, and there are two dominant reading patterns: The F-pattern and the Z-pattern.
F-pattern applies traditionally to text-heavy pages. A reader will scan down the left side of the page looking for interesting key words in the left-aligned copy. In layout and composition remember to always align the important information left and use short and highlighted headlines to attract your viewers’ interest.
Z-pattern applies mainly to webpages or other pages, where information is not necessarily presented in block paragraphs. The viewers’ eye first scans across the top left of the page, then moves down to the opposite corner at a diagonal and does the same thing across the lower part of the page. If what we see at the top left corner is what we perceive first is logical to place there the most important design element. This is why we usually see the logos on webpages on the top left corner or a person’s name at the left side of a business card.
Although these principles are quite important and used a lot, they can be undermined by scaling elements up and good use of contrast.
We have already discussed leading lines as a graphic element, and they are also particularly important in setting visual hierarchy.
Leading lines are lines, shapes, arrows, pointing fingers or photo manipulations that direct the viewer through the layout to a specific focal point. You can use croppings or unusual shapes as a navigator for the eye and lead it in a particular direction as part of your composition.
The rule of thirds is used in layout and composition to set a focal point. The rule of thirds it’s simple: divide your frame into 9 equal rectangles and place the most important design elements on any of the four intersections.
The points where these lines intersect are known as points of interest. Using the point of interest as a focal point for your composition will create a more dynamic and engaging composition than placing elements in the centre of the page, as the viewers’ eyes tend to naturally gravitate towards one of these points of interest rather that the centre of the composition.
We’ve already talked about size, and we've discusseed how viewers pay more attention to bigger objects because simply they are hard to ignore. The bigger the element the more important it looks. That’s why using large scale elements and bold and big typography will draw attention to the content you’d like to emphasise the most as part of your design.
Typography and typeface refer to the fonts that you use within your composition. Typography in Graphic Design it’s an incredibly vast topic, so here, we will only be covering the basics.
In the creating contrast with typography section we discussed how to create contrast maximum contrast combining serifs and sans-serifs fonts, without going into much detail in defining what are serif or sans-serif fonts.
Serif fonts have little lines or strokes attached at the end of each letter. This type of fonts are considered traditional fonts and look very professional and authoritative and evoke old typewriters. You should use serif fonts when working on an institutional look for your composition. Serif fonts are particularly common in magazines, print publications and newspapers.
Popular serif fonts are: Times New Roman, Bodoni, Didot and Garamond.
Sans-Serifs fonts don’t have the extended strokes (or serifs) at the end of each letter, hence the name ‘sans-serif’, without serifs.
Sans-serif fonts convey simplicity, modernism and minimalism to compositions. Sans-serifs are now the most popular in visual communication widely used in different formats and mediums, from digital to print, to title sequences and packaging. Sans-Serif fonts have an attention-grabbing style.
Popular sans-serif fonts are Helvetica, Gotham, Akzidenz Grotesk and Futura.
Decorative, display or script fonts are all those other typefaces that cannot be classified as either serif or sans-serif. Decorative fonts have usually an embellishment or ornament and come in a great variety of different typefaces. Decorative fonts are mainly used for big titles and headlines, and rarely used for body copy as their decorative elements makes them difficult to read on small scale.
Okay, so now you have a basic understanding of typography, but how to actually design with typography? When designing a composition, less is more, it is always better to use a little variation on typography, making your composition consistent rather than having too many different versions. It is good practice to use one to two different fonts in your composition.
Don’t overuse contrast in typography! To show contrast on a composition one or two changes are enough to create the emphasis needed. If you are adding colour to your text, there is no need to make it also bold or oblique at the same time. In any composition you are working on try to have less then three differences in creating contrast with typography.
When using all caps, use it only for short pieces of text. This is useful to grab attention and it is good practice to use it for headlines or titles, only. Lower caps text is much more readable.
LEADING:
Leading is the space between each row of typography. Paying attention and customizing the leading of the typography you are working with can help you increase the legibility and overall improve the reader’s experience. Usually the automated leading for body text it’s 2.5 points increase more than the font size, and as a general guidance it is good to have it between 2 to 4 points increase than the body-copy.
CENTRED TYPOGRAPHY:
As we’ve mentioned a few times in western culture, our eye is trained to read top-to-bottom and left-to-right so when it comes to centring text, only centre short pieces of text, making sure to have your hyphenation tick-box off. Long centred body-text it’s difficult to read and will look quite confusing to our eye who will be missing a raw of text to jump to naturally. Overall centred typography works well for headings and short sub-headings helping you with the hierarchy and contrast of your elements.
When working with typography readability should always be your priority. Having easy to read and accessible typography for your viewer should be key.
CHOOSING YOUR TYPEFACES:
There are just so many typefaces out there to choose from, so at the beginning it is best to stick only with one typeface per composition. Find one that’s well designed, which comes with a variety of weights: such as regular, bold, semi-bold, medium, italics and light. For body text my favourite go-to typefaces are Helvetica and Gotham as both come with a great variety of weights to choose from, giving me flexibility of choice when designing and have great readability as well.
A common mistake in layout and composition is having typography (or better words) repeating what other elements have already said, or are saying, for example having an image of a bee, the text that goes with it doesn’t need to tell your viewer that they are seeing a bee. The additional typography needs to add the information or meaning of the other graphic elements part of the composition.
We already talked about the importance of white and negative space in compositions, but how can you actually use them to your advantage in your work? We are so used to being exposed to so much content every day via social media, on television and any other medium as there are so many new contents that gets constantly produced and shared with the world.
Because we are so used to seeing so much all the time and being so stimulated, we barely see white space or areas without any type of content, that once we see it makes us stop and pay attention to it. Having enough room to let your layout breathe and each of the elements you are using has space around it will help your composition communicate effectively. White space isolates and clarifies the information on the page, other than grabbing attention.
In Layout and Composition and Editorial Design, in general, there are only four elements to each composition (or page), although they not necessarily need to be in each page. Each composition will be built out of these flour elements that need to be used as guides.
The four complimentary elements of layout and composition are:
- Artwork: which can be a mix of images, illustrations, geometric shapes or any other visual image
- Headlines
- Body copy
- Cut lines
In Layout and Composition artwork includes a wide variety of possible visual work, from the use of images, photography, to illustrations or even geometric shapes and patterns, for simplicity we are going to refer to this mix of media as artwork.
Artworks are important in telling the story and they add huge value to any layout and composition design work. Artworks anchor your composition.
To have a dynamic composition, make your artwork interact with the rest of the elements you are using as part of the layout. For example, if you are working with a horizontal artwork, use horizontal headlines, cut lines and have the body copy stacked on top of each other.
As we’ve covered a few times in this session the first thing your viewer’s will gravitate towards are artworks and bold colour, and then they will make their way to the headlines.
Headlines come in an array of different types and possibilities. Good headlines need to be conversational, simple and have clear information. Good practice for headlines is that they should be evoking a clear image in your head while you are reading it.
Good headlines are usually written in present tense and in active voice, following this simple guideline of noun, verb, object. Active voice takes less space in your composition, and helps you tell your story straight-forward. Headlines need to be reflecting of the importance of the story.
The body-copy of your layout and composition is the main chunk of content and text that tells the in-depths of your story. If you are working on a poster design you might have a short body-copy of maximum 200 words, but if you are working on a larger editorial piece or for example on your CV you may have more body-copy and content to tell your story.
It is good practice to have your body copy consistent if you are working on a multi-page layout.
Usually body copy sizes range between 9pt to 12pt, for the best readability experience. There is no set rule in place on body text size, for example newspapers are usually set at 10pt. Feel free to experiment with your size, you can also work with half points, but remember to not go below 9pt, it might compromise your readability.
We have already talked about alignment of typography and discussed how aligning left it’s the best option for the best possible reading experience.
Cut lines are the captions used to integrate the story you are telling through your composition. Cut lines add additional context, for example to your artwork, and help you provide background.
Think of cut lines as informative, relevant additional information for your reader’s eye, reinforcing or expanding the story you are communicating and providing meaningful context.
Throughout this session we talked a lot about all the technical layout and composition elements, principles and fundamentals, but we haven’t defined yet what layout and composition actually is, and how to use all of these principals in practice.
So, what does Layout and Composition actually mean? Layout is the composition of all of the design elements and principles: balance, alignment, repetition etc; that holds everything together in a cohesive design. Layout and Composition is how you arrange, distribute and compile all these different elements and principles in a piece of visual communication making it look functional, effective and attention grabbing while telling a core story.
Throughout this part of the session we’ll go over layout and composition for graphic design, and how to use it in practice. We’ll also look at the grid system and in part 2 we will set a live project brief to work on.
The layout of a composition makes the first impression on your viewer. To grab your viewers’ attention and communicate information effectively, you need to organise all of the information you have, prioritising certain parts over others by how elements and content is positioned and the overall composition of the graphic elements.
The first question you need to ask yourself while designing is, what is the first thing you want your viewer to focus on? Do you want to prioritise artworks, photographs or illustrations? What is the call to action, or better, what is the aim you are trying to archive? Are you selling a product? Well, in this case yes, the artwork might be the main focus of your composition.
When designing an editorial piece, you need to attract and lead the viewer on a journey through your layout and composition in a planned and strategical way.
The balance or overall composition of your design is very important, maintaining the right balance between artwork, typography and other design elements is also known as composition.
When designing a layout and composition project, for an effective layout, start by grouping together the information that logically needs to be read and understood together.
Grids are visual guides to help you create your layout and composition. A grid simply divides a two- or three-dimensional space into even spacing between elements, it helps you to build a structure and framework for your designs.
BASIC ANATOMY OF A GRID:
MARGINS
Margins are the border that runs along the outside of a page and composition. Using wider margins helps to have more white space and breathing room as part your composition.
Technically the margins exist so that the printers can safely trim off the edge of the paper without affecting the content. Having enough margin space also helps with holding the composition without obscuring the text with our fingers, and in the case of perfect bind books, which don’t always open flat, there’s the need to leave enough space so that the content doesn’t get wrapped into the spine. Wider margins can also create elegance, giving the design a very modern, structured look.
Two good margin ratios to start in layout and composition design are:
1. 1 – 1 – 2 - 2
2. 5 – 5 – 3 – 8 ratio or golden ratio
These are just two of the most used margin ratios in graphic design. Generally, the only rule that applies to margin ratio is to always leave more margins on the bottom compared to the top to counterbalance the heavy appearance of the content, to give an illusion of floating on the composition rather than going-off of it.
COLUMNS
Columns run vertically downwards from the top of the margin to the bottom. Columns are very helpful in magazine, editorial layouts like for example designing a CV or portfolio, to find placements for paragraphs, headlines and all the body text.
ROWS
Rows are the areas that run horizontally across the composition.
GUTTERS
Gutters are areas between the columns and rows.
FLOWLINES
Flowlines are lines that run horizontally across the grid and they help the reader following content, especially long horizontal body-copy.
MODULES
Modules are the boxes or areas created by the vertical and horizontal lines of the grid. Grid systems can have big and loose module boxes, called open grids, or they can have narrow and small boxes, making a tight grid.
SPATIAL ZONES
Spatial zones consist of several modules to create blocks and content areas to give you a guide on placing groups of content that needs to be grouped and understood together like an artwork and blocks of specific text. Spatial Zones can be large or small depending on the groups of content you are using for each spatial zone.
There so many different types of grids that are used regularly in layout and composition, here we are going to examine the most popular ones:
MANUSCRIPT GRID
A manuscript grid is mainly used for books, long and continuous body of text. Manuscript layout consists of one centre block, mainly used for the body-copy, that divides up the composition and creates a clear margin and text area, header and footer. This is the most basic form of a grid.
MODULAR GRIDS
Modular Grids are the most flexible grids. Modular grids give you the flexibility to work and mix creatively artworks, typography and any other design element you are working with. This type of grid offers great variety of module boxes. Modular grids are used in posters, magazines and all the designs that require a creative composition.
HIERARCHICAL GRIDS
Hierarchical grids are mainly used in web and mobile design. Gutters and margins can change in size depending on the space of the browser. These grids follow an order of importance, with the most important items larger and toward the top of the composition, and less important items further below and smaller.
Grids are mainly used to find functional and strategical placements to all the design elements part of your composition. When working with a grid system make the most of all its components, for example, margins don’t necessarily need to be white or empty, you can place unimportant content on the margins, or text that you decide should not be easy to read.
When your content has large body-copy remember to break-up the large text areas, with headings, sub-heading, paragraphs and maybe with pull out quotes, making your content easier to navigate and follow through, and this will also help in creating contrast.
Another way to break large content up is to overlap elements using the grid system, for example having a pull-out quote partially on top of an artwork.
So, now you have an understanding of the different grid systems, but how do you actually use it in practice? First, let’s start by bringing in all the content you will be using in your working area.
Next, you can start by grouping the content: body-copy, artworks and other elements in their most functional and most effective sub-groups. Once you have your groups ready, you can start arranging the copy inside the grid. Remember to consider hierarchy and how information will be read. Don’t worry about having anything refined at this point, just focus on having everything in the grid and have readability as your top priority. Once you have all of the graphic elements within the grid system pick your chosen typeface and start playing around with sizes and assigning initial contrast where possible. Let’s move to the artwork for a minute and start by scaling your images, photographs or any type of artwork you have available within the grid system.
Some good practice advice when working in composition and layout is to work big, experiment with having images as full bleed. Play around with scaling headlines or try running them over the entire page you have. How does that look? The grid system will help you maintain a sense of cohesion and unity even when making bold typographic choices.
You made it to the final part of part one of this session! You now have an understanding of the basics of Layout and Composition and in general the foundation of Graphic Design.
Throughout this session we looked at layout and composition elements, principles, grid systems and good practices to design effective layout and composition to attract attention and tell your story.
Continue to part two to work on a practical live project brief.
Credits:
This workshop is by Sara Merkaj, Education and International Project Assistant at Manchester Metropolitan University. It is part of the Professionalising Practice Project (P3) from the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. If you have any questions about this workshop, please email Sara at s.merkaj@mmu.ac.uk