Grids: Their Meaning and Use for Federal Designers (Massimo Vignelli, 1976)

The National Endowment for the Arts printed this booklet in its Federal Design Library series. It is based on a presentation Massimo Vignelli gave on November 10, 1976, to the Second Studio Seminar for Federal Graphic Designers. The Federal Design Improvement Program recommends the grid as a device that can save the government time and money and take the guesswork out of graphic communication, and the argument is made in those terms.

Vignelli's case rests on what agencies had already adopted. The booklet cites the NASA standards manual, which defines a grid as 'a predetermined understructure that the designer can employ to give the publication cohesive style and character.' It adds that scores of federal agencies had by then established the grid as a framework for their publications. A grid fixes margins, columns and proportions once, so each later pamphlet inherits them instead of reopening the question. The booklet runs 44 pages and was written for the federal designers who attended the seminar.