The grid

Magazine pages are designed on what is called a grid, a skeleton plan which allows consistent placing of elements such as columns, page numbers, running heads and repeated rules. The word is used in two ways: first, to describe the abstract pattern to the placing of columns, etc.; and second, as the physical thing with which a designer works- paper in old technology, a computer screen for most designers now. (The physical grid shows, on paper or screen, what decisions have been taken when the abstract grid was created.) Devising the grid 9in the abstract sense) is probably the single most important stage in determining how a magazine will look.