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Massimo Vignelli — Unigrid System, National Park Service — 1977
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One Grid, Four Hundred Parks.

In 1977 the National Park Service asked Massimo Vignelli to bring order to hundreds of park brochures, each one designed from scratch. His answer was the Unigrid: ten standard brochure formats, all derived from one base sheet and one modular grid.

The system is instantly recognisable. A black band runs across the top carrying the park's name, photography is sized to grid modules, text sits in strict columns, and a second black band closes the sheet. Park staff who were not designers could assemble a brochure that still looked unmistakably like the Park Service.

The Unigrid is still in use today. Nearly fifty years of brochures, hundreds of parks, one grid — arguably the most-printed modular grid system in history.

  1. A grid is a tool you hand to other people. Design it so non-designers can compose with it.
  2. Standard formats are not the enemy of identity. They are what makes identity possible at scale.
  3. One fixed element — the black band — does the recognising. Everything else is free to change.
Try this grid