dynamic
grid
system
a new approach to design on the web
This project is an experiment with the grid-based layout. The core idea is that we, designers, can make the web layout richer and more engaging without adding any extra elements to the material itself. I did that through creating two different layouts for the same material and, then, designed the way that the two blend as the page is scrolled. Since the grid plays a guiding role in this process of transformation, I shall call this approach the dynamic grid system—in honour of the grid system developed by the Swiss graphic designers in 1950s. To demonstrate the dynamic grid system in action, I’ve chosen one influential essay written in the twentieth century and designed the layouts for it with the dynamic grid approach in mind.
The essay is “Ornament and Crime” by Austrian-Czechoslovakian architect Adolf Loos in which he declares ornament to be a drag on the economy, wasting human labour, money, and material while serving no function. Later on, these ideas became antecedent to the entire modernist movement; hence I picked the images of modernist products and used them in the layout alongside with the text.