Single A4 page construction - Van de Graaf Canon

Florian

Hi everyone,

Is there a standard or way to calculate a good single A4 page construction. I know of the Van De Graaf and Tschichold page construction theory and how to apply/calculate it. But was wondering on how to do this for a single page instead of a spread.

Hope someone has the answer, been pondering about this for a while.

KP Mawhood

The principles hold true, except I find it works better to centre the textblock, or use a deliberately asymmetrical design. Both should convert well to print, as well as digital.

Increasingly, I've been shifting to horizontal layouts that work better for screen. Unfortunately, this has all the hallmarks of the "slide deck" genre and good typography is easily dismissed. Dull powerpoint slides and flashy keynotes have left a legacy.

In text-heavy PDF reports, it's great to play with page proportions without limitation. Why feel limited by standard sizes, when minor 6th (5:8) works just as well on screen?

kupfers

I find the classic construction gives me too much margin/whitespace for contemporary communication design (50% “waste”) but you can take the 9 × 9 division principle and apply it to different page sizes, or use a 12 × 12 (anything that could accommodate two or three columns, for instance).

sveinbjorn

It feels like they would not translate. They create tension on a single page and symmetry on a spread. you can't achieve that on a single canvas, it either tension or symmetry. 

Your nine column grid looks very promising though. Here are some thoughts that might get you out of the rut, if that is the case.

From my experience of designing tons of big posters, starting with the grid may not be the best approach. Here is what I tend to do: If it is a single frame design, experiment with the assets and see what forms. If it's repeated, I do much the same, but cycle through the set of frames or pages and see if the rules I decide work on every canvas. 

Also consider a double grid, that is that for the 9 column grid you show, maybe set it on a page where you've doubled that grid, so you could start the inside grid after the third cell, for instance.

Also remember that scale is a consideration. The classic book grid recipies are applied to canvases that range between a5 and a6, so their margins are relatively wider. 

Compare with newspaper margins. The magazine I just left after 5 years was newsprint, using the same margins and page sizes as the newspaper that owned the giant printing machine.

The frame was 255x400mm or so, but the margins were between 10 and 20mm. 

I am no expert in these grid systems. I prefer experimentiing, usually. So take what you find useful and leave the rest.