Raster makes the invisible structure of great design visible — then lets you put your hands on it.
Every work in this collection was built on a structure its designer chose before choosing anything else. Raster shows that structure: eight masterworks of twentieth-century graphic design, each with the grid that generated it ruled over the artifact in red. Slide between structure and original, and the design explains itself.
Then compose. Each work opens in the playground with its actual grid loaded and the original ghosted beneath your blocks — you learn a grid the way its designer knew it: by working inside it.
The lines
The construction lines are measured, not decorative. Each grid was fitted to a reproduction of the artifact itself — band edges pixel-sampled, column rhythms matched, the Beethoven poster’s rings circle-fitted to its own printed arcs. Where a construction is radial, the plate rules rings. Where a designer worked against the very idea of a system, the plate says only what is true: one axis, a baseline, and deliberate emptiness. The grids do not have to be the designer’s literal drawings — they are honest reconstructions, and when they can be measured, they are.
Reproductions
- Josef Müller-Brockmann — beethoven, Tonhalle Zürich, 1955Reproduction via the neugraphic archive. © the Müller-Brockmann estate.
- Massimo Vignelli — Unigrid System, National Park Service, 19771986 Yosemite sheet, National Park Service. Public domain (npshistory.com).
- Willy Fleckhaus — Twen Nr. 2, February 1962Scan via Readymag Design Stories. © the Fleckhaus estate and successors.
- Jan Tschichold — Penguin Books No. 616, 1949Scan via penguinfirsteditions.com. Penguin trade dress © Penguin Books.
- Alexey Brodovitch — Harper’s Bazaar, September 1945Reproduction via The Curious Desk. © Hearst Magazines.
- Otl Aicher — Zeichensystem poster, Munich 1972Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum (1997-19-167). © the Aicher estate / IOC.
- Herb Lubalin — Avant Garde No. 13, 1971Internet Archive scan behind the Herb Lubalin Study Center archive. © Avant-Garde Media.
- Wim Crouwel — Vormgevers, Stedelijk Museum, 1968SFMOMA collection (2015.658). © the Crouwel estate.
Reproductions appear as educational references at study size; all works remain the property of their rights holders. Raster is not affiliated with the designers, estates, or institutions named above.