Designing the grid for editorial design

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Editorial design means fashioning and defining a space with texts and images. The interplay and arrangement of these texts and images is intended to facilitate the process of reading. To achieve this, one makes use of a typographical structure or grid. The grid also constitutes the basic structure of editorial design, for simple brochures as well as complex art books. Grids can be found everywhere, serving as the basis for architecture, music, design, art, theatre and city planning. Since the direction of reading goes from left to right and from top to bottom, a grid normally consists of a series of horizontal and vertical lines. The vertical lines are set in terms of the column width whereas the horizontal lines are determined by the space taken up by the line of type. The size of these units or fields is defined by the content and components that make up the whole: type characters and images. The grid can be adapted and carried on ad infinitum. It can be reused and transformed again and again.

This workshop will focus on paper. Particular attention will be paid to the characteristics of the paper as well as the qualities of the grid. We will examine the appropriate use and technical aspects of the paper in order to get three-dimensional spaces that respect the golden section. Thus, we will develop a typographical grid that allows participants to create three-dimensional objects. The latter will communicate through the text themes related to the spaces we inhabit, and to the surroundings of Boisbuchet (nature, landscape, architecture, ecology, gastronomy).

Each participant will develop a concept starting from a surface of 1 metre 50 centimetres that can be folded in a way to create a note book. This notebook will be used by each participant throughout the workshop week and will be exhibited at the end, together with the typographical project.

Individuals are asked to demonstrate creative will, imagination, talent for observation, expressiveness, craftsmanship skills and the ability to present projects. We will work with paper, cutting tools, ruler and compass. Participants will work on their own project independently while comparing their work with that of the others. Over the course of the workshop, we want to explore the diverse possibilities of expression of editorial design products, employing nothing more than paper and a grid.

Ricardo Salas (MX)

Graphic design studies at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Basel and the Milan Polytechnicum. Graphic arts studio Frontespizio founded in 1983 in Milan. Collaboration with Achille Castiglioni and Heinz Waibl for the Biennale INTEL 85, Milan. Since the establishment of Frontespizio Design (Mexico, 1988), realisation of over 450 editorial projects for museums in Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, Madrid, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Lima, Dallas, Amsterdam, Athens, Hamburg, and Tel Aviv. Salas teaches at a number of renowned universities in Latin America. He has received numerous awards for his work as a graphic designer