Ratios

The rule of thirds simply states that if you take a canvas and divide it into three equally sized horizontal sections and three equally sized vertical sections, the resulting grid provides a sort of “roadmap” that helps you choose where to place your design elements.

In this class, we will look at certain ratios that can be used when creating a layout. The layout systems have been a part of art and architecture for thousands of years, and they are very important to the field of graphic design.

A ratio system is a set of measurements a graphic designer can use to align and size objects within the canvas. Although we do operate with a set of grid categories, there are no strict rules as to what can or cannot be a layout helper.

The traditional way of creating these helpers is by doing it by hand in Photoshop or Illustrator. However, if you want to change the helpers, you need to every grid line and design object by hand. It might take longer to code such designs using a programming language, but it is much faser to test variations of a ratio afterwards.

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