Learning Activity – Basic Principles of Layout

• Take a magazine, newspaper or book that includes images and text. Lay tracing paper over the top of three spreads (both left-hand and right-hand pages). Using a pencil and ruler, carefully trace the grid underlying the page layouts. Remember to remove specific text elements or images, and to only draw the grid lines. Note column widths and margin sizes at the top, bottom, and to the left and right of the main body of text. Is your document based on a two-column, three-column, or another type of grid? Which elements stay the same on each page, and which change?
• Publish your findings to your WordPress blog and provide photos or scans of your exercise.

I chose my son’s book which is called “Operasjon Mørkemann”. This book is a part of a series of books, with the same layout, type and design, using different colorchemes.

I didn’t have a tracing paper, but I tried as best as I could to get the layout on my paper.

This is an a5 book cover, but the paper inside is a bit smaller to fit inside the cover so the measurements i did was (h)20,4cmx(w)14,8cm, portrait. And these are the spreads I used:

These are spreads that show how the elements are placed through the entire book, variating between these. The image that streches in the bottom over two pages are also used on the top, but with the same size, and this goes for the other image as well – it can be used on the top or bottom, left page or right page.

Margins paragraph section

• Top: 2,2cm
• Bottom: 2,2cm
• Outside: 2cm
• Inside: 1,8cm

Grids used for chapter start:

• Top: 2cm to the Head line
• Bottom: 7,2cm to the bottopp chapter picture.

Picture grids various a bit, but it contains the same style, with no large differences. The pictures that streches over two pages seem to have a grid for approximately 9,5 cm, depending on the picture. Some pictures are a bit wavy. (don’t mind the type and leading that’s written on the piece of paper…)

This is the main layout. The chapter always starts with a circled picture, with the same size. It is a one coloumned book which contains images. It’s easy to read for young people with tha large leading and readable fonts.