Off the Grid

This week was admittedly less dense than past weeks have been. We had often been assigned to read multiple chapters from our two assigned books. But the quantity of readings was exchanged for quality through choice selections from the web. The subject matter for our readings from this week focused on key principles for effective design layouts. Much of the content emphasized the importance of understanding design layouts as grids. Grids offer layouts a natural and accessible structure for information. More importantly, understand grids well can also help us to know how to break the rules to go "off the grid," resulting in asymmetric designs that draw users to important actions.

Among all the ways to work creatively beyond a basic, unoriginal grid design stands the "Golden Ratio" principle. I think that this was the most interesting concept that stuck with me this week. It follows the rules of a grid layout, but looks like it breaks from the grid from the end-user's perception. However, because the principle follows a geometric formula for how the spacing of elements relate to one another, the resulting design still ends up feeling surprisingly natural and pleasant to the eyes. It was fascinating to discover how the spatial relationships found in the Golden Ratio principle are also found everywhere in nature. Although I'm still learning to make sense of using the Golden Ratio in practice, I look forward to seeing how the principle will aid me for new designs in the future.