grid presentation

For our first brief from contextual studies we were asked to get into groups of 4 and present one example of a good grid and one example of a bad grid. 

For my section of the presentation I introduced our good grid and explained the reasoning behind our choice. 

"We chose swiss designer Max Bill for our use of a successful grid, focusing on his work Bildsäulen-Dreiergruppe roughly translated as triplet statue. The sculpture comprises of three elongated towers, reaching heights of 32 metres. Each tower follows a mathematical system as part of a 9 part colour wheel. Each of the three towers start and end on different colours, creating an upwards colour wheel spiral. Each cylinder of colour is separated by a line of steel, acting as the gutter within a grid. Allowing breathing space for the colours to be appreciated individually instead of merging into one."

Following on from this we spoke about its later use for Mercedes Benz and how from a birds eye view it creates their logo. The idea of it meaning something to us today, how it still remains modern years on from its production. 

We continued with our bad grid choosing the CSM website due to its spontaneity and lack of breathing space. The UAL website featured varying pages for each college, some of which we thought worked but CSM stood out completely as bad design. The way the images are extremely disproportionate to the surrounding page and squashed together. The lack of a gutter makes all the individual components appear as one cluttered mess with no hierarchy. We decided to focus on a good and bad grid that are both very linear and how it can work in sculpture/architecture but fails when it comes to web design. 

Overall I feel that the presentation went well and we were able to communicate our points affectively. We gained feedback from our peers that perhaps the colleges have designed their webpages individually to express their differences. In response I would argue that if a successful grid were in place then multiple designers would be able to still produce individual outcomes. With the grid it would enable a cohesive feel when moving from one page to other, creating the right balance between being an individual college and being part of UAL.