Managing data is one of the trickiest jobs for a designer.
Using grids will help you present tabular matter in a format which makes it
accessible and understandable to your reader, which is always our goal.
Let's look at some good examples of tabular grids.
This list of 500 companies has three statistics, a ranking,
the company name, and a percentage representing a three-year growth rate.
The factors to be considered when establishing the grid were the number of
pages allocated for this list, the number of entries, which was 500,
the length of the longest company name, and legibility factors including point
sizes, type styles, and sufficient space between entries to have clear separation.
That calculation resulted in a four-column grid.
Notice the light tint bars across every other line.
These help readers with separation.
This grid addresses the process behind the NBA lottery for draft picks.
Each of the 14 teams is ranked by its chances at getting top picks.
The team name and ranking has the widest space allocation.
The depth of all of the modules is determined by the lines of
text under the names.
This resulted in tall modules for the numbers, and
they are nicely filled by using super thin and super condensed numbers.
I love the contrast between the lively imagery and
the rich density of the tabular grid in this spread from ESPN.
And it has a couple of extra infographics thrown in for good measure.
The table lists the 50 top paid athletes in the world,
their salaries in the red bars, and their league and team affiliations.
Again, to determine the shape and
size of the grid, its content first had to be considered.
What was the longest name, and the longest team affiliation?
That would determine its horizontal dimensions.
How to fit all 50 athletes, vertically?
And in this case, the limitations of the magazine spread had to be respected.
Live matter had to steer clear of the gutter.
And there is a nice alignment of a columnar grid here, too.
The final column in the three-column grid contains the two infographics,
which depict the top paid female athletes in the world and
the best paying teams in the world.
This is one page from a multi-page document.
The modular grid lists company names, locations and descriptions, and
numerical data including revenue, growth, employees and years founded.
The color bars allow readers to scan vertically to compare like figures or
data, and the horizontal rules enforce separation between entries.
Remember that when you are establishing grid formats for your projects,
you need to have good legibility, clear separation, and ease of navigation.
Tabular material can be made much less intimidating by
using good grid construction.