INTRODUCTION
Grids form as essential part of our lives. We may not always notice them, but their influence on what we see, hear and do is everywhere. Wherever plans have been called for in the building of objects, the division of areas, of the decoration of flat surfaces grids have been involved. The desire to bring order to the bewildering confusion of appearances reflects a deep human need. In this sense, they can be seen as metaphors for the human need to make sense of the world and to position ourselves in control of it. The grid is not a typographic device alone. The tension between chaos and order and its concomitant anxieties are present in all human activity, not just graphic design. From gridlock to sonnet structure, electricity to politics, dentistry to hopscotch, a journey down London's Oxford St. or any other street in any town, grids are everywhere. Grids, modules, and systems not only have practical applications, as a means to resolve complex design problems, but they also provide a sense of order and and temporary respite from the most pressing and basic human fears and dilemmas.

GRIDS&DESIGNS
Just as mathematics began with the measurement of objects and space, design began with the arrangement of objects in harmonious relationship to each other and to the space they occupy. In this chaotic world in which parameters are always changing, grids seem more pressing today than they have ever been. Grid-it! products recreate a series of grids that played a historic role in the development of design systems. These cover a wide spectrum of classic and contemporary design. By moving the grids from the backround to the foreground, and divorcing them from their content, we pay homage as well as render the invisible visible. As designers, understanding the advantages as well as the limitations of the grid helps us determine what place they should take in our own work.The basic principle of a grid is extremely simple. A grid is the graphic design equivalent of a building's foundations. Dictionaries define the grid as "a network of uniformly placed horizontal and vertical lines for locating points by means of coordinates". The grid is a simple design tool that provides a framework within which a designer or typographer can order the potential chaos of letters and images on a page. A series of verticals and horizontals subdivide a page into units of space, which in turn hold type and images. The vertical lines relate to the column widths, while the horizontal ones determine the space that a line of type occupies. The purpose is to make the process of designing easier, speedier and more efficient. The rules of typography refer not only to the distances separating letters and words, to the leading out of lines, to type sizes, etc. but also to the proportions of the type area, the type column, the margins and the page sizes.Grids unite the practical with the aesthetic. They are about the organisation of objects in space and this involves making aesthetic decisions about proportion and scale. Grids are fundamentally about a way of thinking. They are used to help bring order to a page and to impose structured thinking into the design process. "This demand for ordered structure and aesthetic quality is one which modern typography should also seek to satisfy but it is exposed to the risk of abuse in the interests of merely fashionable trends", argues Muller-Brockmann. It is the process of challenging or questioning these assumptions that is important, because in doing so we re-evaluate our perception of the environment and our role within it. "The grid, like any other instrument in the design process, is not an absolute. It should be used with flexibility, and when necessary it should be modified or abandoned completely for a more workable solution", explains Allen Hurlburt. A grid does not hold interest in isolation but does as part of a system. The pattern of a grid will be guided by the function of the content and the design concept. Making the grid overtly visible can be a 'trick' that often implies false techical rigour.. Because each grid is custom-made to fit the parameters of a specific project the grid may take an unlimited variation in form. In any event, it will be judged by the quality of the resulting design and not by the intricate tracery of its own form. For this reason, and to be fair to the brilliant designers who developed the grids we celebrate, we suggest to anyone who purchases a Grid-it! product to refer to the original books and magazines in order to appreciate the importance of the grid in relation to its content.

For more information on grids read this brilliant article
by Anthony Froshaug,'Typography is a grid':
http://www.hyphenpress.co.uk/column/column_2.html