lecture 4: the grid

Though artists and designers continued to play with the form (see the image below), modernist design became based on the idea of the grid.

Theo van Doesburg: Contra-Construction XVI (detail)

"Kandinsky called a four-square grid 'the prototype of linear expression'; it is an elementary diagram of two-dimensional space. Similarly, the Dutch de Stijl movement, headed by Theo van Doesburg, identified the grid as the fundamental origin of art. The de Stijl grid suggests both the infinite extension of an object beyond its boundaries, and the cutting of this vast continuum into distinctly framed fields. "Conventional Western writing and typography is organised on a grid: a generic page consists of horizontal rows of type arranged in a rectangular block." from Lupton, Ellen (1993): "Visual Dictionary" in E. Lupton and J. Abbott Miller, eds., the abc's of... the bauhaus and design theory, Thames & Hudson, page 28. This book is an excellent introduction to the design principles being discussed here.

The key idea is the division of a space into "distinctly framed fields". Compare this with the Wainwright book on the previous slide where there were no clear divisions between areas of the page. This is what would make it impossible to describe this page to a computer in order that it could be reproduced. (The image on that page was produced with the help of a scanner but see lecture 5 for reasons why this is not something that should be done online except in special circumstances.)

Tables, basically, are the tools available to web designers which allow them to tell browsers where the divisions between "framed fields" are located, and what goes into each of these fields.