Discussion Point 1-Heirarchy and Grids

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Discussion Point 2- Hierarchy and Grids

Felicity Riley

“To categorize typography as traditional, liberal conservatism or avant-gardism is to ignore the overall question of how typographical design can best serve as an acutely sensitive instrument for communication between divergent ideas and divergent peoples.”
- Lester Beall

There is a percentage of people who believe that with the advancements in digital technologies came the laziness of the typographer, but then there are those who believe it only opened up limitless possibilities, it broadened our horizons.

The use of visual hierarchy and grids have evolved with the changing technology, moving away from traditional letterpress techniques and applying alignment, format, line length and colour to express new meaning or statements.

‘the early computers were so limited in what they could do you really had to design something special.’

We can see clearly that Adobe software has had a huge impact on how we design. It has had a significant effect on typography, giving the user more power in manipulation and control. Although traditional forms of type should not be lost due to their history and purpose, it is an immediacy that we gain from using products such as inDesign, PhotoShop and Illustrator. We are able to manipulate the subjects with pinpoint precision and quickly review a grid or heirarchy system with a click of a mouse.

There are much less constraints on how we design a layout or place text, more and more users are trying to show impact through new techniques and grids, which is much more efficiently executed through digital software.

Leading that is involved in letterpress usually consists of placing objects between each letter, which does limit the designer in terms of sizes and spacing, whereas in inDesign or other programs, it is up to the user to input their exact measurements that they fill delivers the message most appropriately.