1:33 The Definition and Importance of Grid System 3:11 Types of Grids in Graphic Design 4:15 Practical Application 5:34 Setting Up Modular Grid in InDesign 11:07 Designing with Modular Grid in InDesign very informative
You are welcome I am happy you found the example workflow happy, I thought I would give an extra dimension to the video instead of just chatting about why it is important in my eyes😁
Thank you for the insightful discussion on the importance of grids in design! As a magazine layout designer, this is incredibly helpful. I’m excited to see more of your content soon. (Just a suggestion for your next topic: Picking the right typography and pairing!) 🌟
Thank you for your kind words! I am happy to hear you liked the content and find it helpful! That means a lot to me 🙏🏻. That is a nice suggestion for one of my future videos that idea will go on my idea list! Thanks for sharing, and thanks for sticking around mate! 💪🏼
Really appreciate your workflow, as a designer I agree on how grids can help archieve a great result. Design is about being creative following some important rules to express the best out of our work. Thanks for sharing, I'll keep supporting your content
Looks like algrorythm bring me to the right place.. Confusing why my design looks messy, not place properly, and vise versa.. Already thought the answer, just the source not the best i looking for.. But this, this solve my problem.. And because this too, i can see the difference the pure art and designing an art.. Thumbs Up.. Thank you for the video.. And also thanks for the examples your provide, giving how the excecution process on the media itself.. Had a great day.. :D
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm happy the video helped clarify things for you! It’s always awesome to connect with others who appreciate the art in design. Thanks for watching, and have an amazing day too!
Thank you, your kind words mean alot to me and I am happy to hear it was helpful for you! And I am planning on keeping up with youtube every once a two weeks 😁
Thank you for this amazing and useful piece of content on grid systems. I work on Print and Digital design projects taking lot of time but now this will help me to save a time.
Hi Asmi, thank you for your kind words! Happy to hear you found this content valuable! The best past is you can use grids for both print and digital! Huge time savers right?! 😁🙏🏻
You are welcome! Glad to hear you found it wunderbare! haha I am dutch and live very close to the German border, and some german viewers always think I am Deutsch haha.
Hi! Great question! When choosing a grid, I start by looking at the content I need to organize. For example, if I'm working on something with lots of text, I might go with a column grid to keep everything easy to read. For a more visual project, like a portfolio, a modular grid with more flexibility can work well to showcase images. I also consider the style I’m aiming for: a simple, modern design might use a 12-column grid for flexibility, while something more traditional could use a 3- or 4-column grid. Experimenting with a few options usually helps find the best fit for the project’s style and needs. Hope this gives you some ideas!
Thanks for sharing your process. I've been working with grids for ages but setting margins like you show in this video always leaves me a bit uneasy, simply because they are in fact detached from either the page or the grid. I think a strong argument could be made to make margins as part of your grid, meaning that you use a bit more flexible grid system to divide up the entire page/canvas and then draw up the margins using the outer modules of the grid, rather than come up with some comfortable but ultimately random round number for margins and then draw your grid only within that working space. Or to think about it in other way, in which way a 15 or 25 mm set of margins relate to the 297x210 mm A4 page or your 4x8 grid for that matter? It doesn't right, not at all, it's a separate thing.
Thanks a lot for your insights Juur! You make a really interesting point about integrating margins into the grid. I see what you mean about having margins as part of the grid rather than treating them as separate elements. So how do you come up with margins sizes within a full page grid? I think if you divide a page using a grid with margins that fall inside the grid, you end up with awkward areas along the page edges that get cut off by the margins. This can definitely make balancing and layout work a bit tricky in my eyes. I totally get that there are different ways to approach this, and I appreciate your perspective. Thanks for sharing!
@@Typefool I started using this method only recenty, but the main point is to be guided by the grid that is exactly the size of your page, instead of relying on random round numbers which have nothing to do with the overall page size or proportions. The choice of the overall margin style (wider or narrow) should very much influence the type of grid you're going to use, and that's the entire point. But I'm only experimenting with such a system myself, so also cannot give a full breakdown at this point.
@@juurstudio Oke sounds interesting, thanks for sharing! One question which comes to mind, how do you make sure you stay away from the borders of the document? Because a modular grid doesn't come with margins right? only gutters? How do you work around this?
@@Typefool Not sure I understand your question entirely, but as much as I do, as the whole point is making margins part of your grid you should dedicate any number of outer modules of your gird as margins. Say you use 16 column grid to divide the width of a A4 page, then you can define 2 outer modules as your margins, which will leave you with 12 grid column grid as your working area. Or you might want wider margins, in which case you can take 3 modules for margins, or use a different number of grid. It's really flexible system, but it does require you to think it through.
honestly jobber is not meant for designers or event planners. if they bombard you with ads, i think reporting them is probably your best next step. just a recommendation.
Yes! You can draw a rectangle in Illustrator in any size, and you can go to object > path > split in to grid and define you grid columns, rows and gutter in that section! 😄🔥
@@floyd1411 thank you happy to hear you enjoyed it! 🙏🏻 I think working with any other program doesn’t makes a huge different, basically the modular grid would be the same you can just convert the mm’s to pixels. You cab use a 40pixel margin instead of 10mm.
Thank you for watching and showing love! No I haven’t learned graphic design myself, the basics I learned in art school. But hey they only gonna teach you 10% the rest you have to learn yourself 🙏🏻 and that’s interest, passion and dedication 🙌🏻
Amazing video, thank you for sharing this with us! Just wondering would you consider creating a video showing us how to create professional looking social media posts for eg Instagram?
@@Typefool I definitely think so, I have been creating content for a while, and definitely would like to learn how to do it properly and make it more engaging for my followers
Great video and very helpful, thank you. I am currently working on my grid game, and I have one simple question that I struggle with to get me started on a project; at the very start of a design project how do you make the decision as to what grid you use, what's the decision process? It seems this decision will really effect to entire project so it's important to get that part right? Thank you in advance, I am now a Subsciber.
Thanks for the kind words, and welcome to Typefool's family! haha 😊 For choosing a grid at the start of a design project, for me it is about matching the grid to the project’s needs. I usually start by considering the content and layout requirements. If you have lots of content, a more complex grid might work better. For simpler designs, a basic grid could be sufficient. I think the key is to find a grid that supports your design goals and keeps everything organised. And again I’m excited to have you on board!
@@Typefool Thank you for the reply, much appreciated. I agree that grids are very important, so i'll be hoping to make further vids on the subject :). Your concise appraoch is great btw, keep it up.
@@matthewslocombe9571 thank you! I appreciate that! Yes I will make more videos about grids in the future because they are important and I like to work with them.
Hi Keith! Thank you for your question! Yes, when I work with a lot of text, I match my modular grid to the baseline grid. This ensures all text lines up consistently across the entire document. It helps maintain alignment and readability throughout the design. Is this something what you think would be interesting for another video?
random question. did you by chance use an eye contact filter in making this video? just asking, because i'm considering whether or not to use one in my own videos...
@@js_guyman Hi there! Nope I didn’t used one, I use some kind of teleprompter so I can read some text and bulletpoints while I am looking to the camera!
Oh, I have a question, why sometimes in some books or editorials the margins are not on the centre of page, I saw a book of the futur, the margins were on right and top ( the space was less to the document edge compared to the opposite direction )
Yes sure! That's right Mohamed, often in books or magazines with a lot of pages, more margins are used on the inside where the fold is. Because this fold in the middle of the book which actually eliminates a space. Therefore, they more often give more margins to the page in the inside. To make the content look optically in the middle :).
Good question! I think the number of rows and columns depends on your content and design needs and the complexity of the layout you want. What you can do is start with a basic grid of 4 rows 8 columns, and adjust it based on how you want to structure text, images, and other elements.
Haha, I’m actually Dutch, not German! 😄 But you’re right, we in the netherlands also have a knack for saying numbers backwards sometimes. People often mistake me for German because I grew up and live close to the German border, and our Dutch accent here sounds quite similar to German. Thanks for the laugh, hope you enjoyed the video!
Why do you make the grid and then sometimes not snap text boxes to it, like "innovative design" around 13:49? I noticed that the H2 text is too long or the font is too big to be fitting inside one row or too small for two rows, that perhaps you decided to put H3 in the middle of the grid's gutter... but are these instances where you have to eyeball it a bit to make it look good or are there nice golden ratio-esque "rules" you can follow for such moments? Because of this, the first bodycopy also doesn't snap to the top of it's grid box. And it seems as if you just randomly threw in the last bodycopy (quote?) xD
Hey! Thanks so much for the thoughtful question - I love that you're paying close attention! 😊 You’re totally right; at that point in the video, I was setting up the header and paragraph styles, and I hadn’t focused on snapping everything exactly to the grid yet. My main goal was to dial in the font sizes and spacing to get a feel for how it all works together visually. Later in the process, I do make adjustments to align everything nicely with the grid. There are times, though, where it’s more about finding a balance that just looks ‘right’ - sometimes the grid helps, and sometimes a little eyeballing does the trick! With certain text sizes, it can be tricky to get a perfect fit, so I focus on overall harmony instead. Hope that clears it up a bit! Thanks again for watching and sharing such great insights!
@@Typefool Thank you for your reply and answering my question! :D It helps me a lot with my new graphic design job after switching from 3D. I don't want to realize in 2 years that I've been making rookie mistakes all the time :P
the title is misleading. it should be "steps to turn grids on in indesign." not everyone uses indesign unfortunately. i came for theory, left disappointed. rename your title!
Hi! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I get where you're coming from. My goal with this video was to dive into the theory of grids and show why they’re so valuable for achieving clean, balanced layouts-no matter the software. UA-cam’s algorithm also favors broader titles to help more people discover content like this. But I’ll keep your feedback in mind for future videos and see if I can include more specific tool tips in the description or in future uploads. Thanks for watching, and I hope the insights on grid theory were helpful!
1:33 The Definition and Importance of Grid System
3:11 Types of Grids in Graphic Design
4:15 Practical Application
5:34 Setting Up Modular Grid in InDesign
11:07 Designing with Modular Grid in InDesign
very informative
Thank you Tahsin for timelining the video 😄🙏🏻
I've been struggling with grids for so long and you made my life easier in 20 minutes)) Thank you very much!
Thank you for showing an example workflow. Grids makes me happy.
You are welcome I am happy you found the example workflow happy, I thought I would give an extra dimension to the video instead of just chatting about why it is important in my eyes😁
Bauhaus school of design showing its resilience once again.
Exactly! I also don't think we are going to lose these design principles within graphic design either.
Thank you for the insightful discussion on the importance of grids in design! As a magazine layout designer, this is incredibly helpful. I’m excited to see more of your content soon. (Just a suggestion for your next topic: Picking the right typography and pairing!) 🌟
Thank you for your kind words! I am happy to hear you liked the content and find it helpful! That means a lot to me 🙏🏻. That is a nice suggestion for one of my future videos that idea will go on my idea list! Thanks for sharing, and thanks for sticking around mate! 💪🏼
Appreciate your suggestion of typography pairings 💗
@@jmg9509 thank could be a nice video topic, its on the video ideas list!
Thank you very much. Why didn't I use grids before? It's a game changer!
They are! Thank you for this nice comment. I am happy you found value in this video! 🙏
Really appreciate your workflow, as a designer I agree on how grids can help archieve a great result. Design is about being creative following some important rules to express the best out of our work. Thanks for sharing, I'll keep supporting your content
Thanks for your kind words, and I am happy to hear you appreciate my workflow! Thanks for the support!
Looks like algrorythm bring me to the right place..
Confusing why my design looks messy, not place properly, and vise versa..
Already thought the answer, just the source not the best i looking for..
But this, this solve my problem..
And because this too, i can see the difference the pure art and designing an art..
Thumbs Up..
Thank you for the video..
And also thanks for the examples your provide, giving how the excecution process on the media itself..
Had a great day.. :D
Thank you so much for the kind words! I'm happy the video helped clarify things for you! It’s always awesome to connect with others who appreciate the art in design. Thanks for watching, and have an amazing day too!
Thankyou for make this video, its so helpful for me, hope you still keep going
Thank you, your kind words mean alot to me and I am happy to hear it was helpful for you! And I am planning on keeping up with youtube every once a two weeks 😁
Life changer. Thanks!
Thank you! You’re welcome 😄
Thank you very much for the detailed explanation!
You are welcome, Thank you for hanging around!
thanks for this reminder ❤
You’re welcome!
great stuff! I'm a photographer always looking to improve my design knowledge and skills! Thank you.
Hi man! Thank you! I am happy to hear you liked the video . Thank you for sticking around 👊🏼
Thanks for the detailed tutorial!
You are welcome, I am happy you liked it!
Very helpful video. Thanks
Thank you Mohammed, happy to hear you find it helpful! You're welcome my man.
I Loved the video and the way of teaching. Many many thanks ❤❤😍😍
@@sachinkushwah190 thank you Sachin for the kind words! Happy to hear you loved the video! 🙌🏻🙌🏻😄😁
Wow, thanks so much! This was a great video. :)
Thank you Jerina! I am happy you liked the video 🫶🏼
Thank you for this amazing and useful piece of content on grid systems. I work on Print and Digital design projects taking lot of time but now this will help me to save a time.
Hi Asmi, thank you for your kind words! Happy to hear you found this content valuable! The best past is you can use grids for both print and digital! Huge time savers right?! 😁🙏🏻
@@Typefool 💯 time saver
This is really helpful !
I am happy to hear that Sebastian!
Nice and more informative videos ❤
Thank you for hanging around! And appreciate the kind words! Yes I am planning to do more of these videos in the future 😁😄
You are inspiring me
Great topic, I love working with grid system
Thank you Mohamed, it means a lot to me to hear that! these words keep me thriving!👊
This video is to valuable! Definitely going into my design playlist Thank you!
Aah thank you for your kind words! That keeps me going! 😁👏🏻
Keep going Typefool!
Thank you Ziad! I will 😁🙌🏻
Vielen Dank für so ein wunderbares Video
You are welcome! Glad to hear you found it wunderbare! haha I am dutch and live very close to the German border, and some german viewers always think I am Deutsch haha.
Thank you your video is awesome ❤
Please can you make video about how we can benefit from the design books in the maximum way
Thank you! happy to hear you liked the video 🙏
How do you determine what grid system works best for your project? How did you setup the square gird in InDesign?
Hi! Great question! When choosing a grid, I start by looking at the content I need to organize. For example, if I'm working on something with lots of text, I might go with a column grid to keep everything easy to read. For a more visual project, like a portfolio, a modular grid with more flexibility can work well to showcase images. I also consider the style I’m aiming for: a simple, modern design might use a 12-column grid for flexibility, while something more traditional could use a 3- or 4-column grid. Experimenting with a few options usually helps find the best fit for the project’s style and needs. Hope this gives you some ideas!
Love it thanks
Thank you! For sticking around and showing love.
Thanks for sharing your process. I've been working with grids for ages but setting margins like you show in this video always leaves me a bit uneasy, simply because they are in fact detached from either the page or the grid. I think a strong argument could be made to make margins as part of your grid, meaning that you use a bit more flexible grid system to divide up the entire page/canvas and then draw up the margins using the outer modules of the grid, rather than come up with some comfortable but ultimately random round number for margins and then draw your grid only within that working space. Or to think about it in other way, in which way a 15 or 25 mm set of margins relate to the 297x210 mm A4 page or your 4x8 grid for that matter? It doesn't right, not at all, it's a separate thing.
Thanks a lot for your insights Juur! You make a really interesting point about integrating margins into the grid. I see what you mean about having margins as part of the grid rather than treating them as separate elements. So how do you come up with margins sizes within a full page grid?
I think if you divide a page using a grid with margins that fall inside the grid, you end up with awkward areas along the page edges that get cut off by the margins. This can definitely make balancing and layout work a bit tricky in my eyes.
I totally get that there are different ways to approach this, and I appreciate your perspective. Thanks for sharing!
@@Typefool I started using this method only recenty, but the main point is to be guided by the grid that is exactly the size of your page, instead of relying on random round numbers which have nothing to do with the overall page size or proportions. The choice of the overall margin style (wider or narrow) should very much influence the type of grid you're going to use, and that's the entire point. But I'm only experimenting with such a system myself, so also cannot give a full breakdown at this point.
@@juurstudio Oke sounds interesting, thanks for sharing! One question which comes to mind, how do you make sure you stay away from the borders of the document? Because a modular grid doesn't come with margins right? only gutters? How do you work around this?
@@Typefool Not sure I understand your question entirely, but as much as I do, as the whole point is making margins part of your grid you should dedicate any number of outer modules of your gird as margins. Say you use 16 column grid to divide the width of a A4 page, then you can define 2 outer modules as your margins, which will leave you with 12 grid column grid as your working area. Or you might want wider margins, in which case you can take 3 modules for margins, or use a different number of grid. It's really flexible system, but it does require you to think it through.
This was very insightful 🙏
Thanks, I am glad to hear that! 😄
honestly jobber is not meant for designers or event planners. if they bombard you with ads, i think reporting them is probably your best next step. just a recommendation.
Hello, Thank you for letting me know. To be honest I have no influence on my ads. UA-cam takes care of all that itself... I'm sorry.
Lovely video, can you tell me the name of the font used in this video? Thanks 🙏
Thank you! Appreciate that! You mean the font on the grey title pages? Or in the layout design near the end?
@@Typefool Oh, the title pages
great video. super helpful. thankyou :)
Thank you! I am happy to hear you found it helpful! that means a lot to me!
I think in my design I was not fully using the power of grid, thnx I will incorporate grid to help me better design my brochure.
Hello Naresh, aah ok happy to hear you found value in this video! Happy to hear how you’d experience it working with grids! 👊🏼 good luck!
Really grids are awesome!!!!
That’s what I thought! 💪🏼
Very helpful!
Thank you! Happy to hear you found value in the video! 🔥
thank you ❤
No thank you! For watching and your kind comment 😄❤️
Is there a way to do the same thing in illustrator as you did in this video?
Yes! You can draw a rectangle in Illustrator in any size, and you can go to object > path > split in to grid and define you grid columns, rows and gutter in that section! 😄🔥
Wow, this is awesome, ammm i do have a request tho. Is there any way to could make a video that uses figma and the modular grid set to px?
@@floyd1411 thank you happy to hear you enjoyed it! 🙏🏻 I think working with any other program doesn’t makes a huge different, basically the modular grid would be the same you can just convert the mm’s to pixels. You cab use a 40pixel margin instead of 10mm.
@@Typefool I hear you. Thank you. I will give that a go
You’re awesome. Keep creating.
Thank you Ajitesh! Appreciate your kind words!
Love your work!
Thank you! appreciate that 🙌
Thank you for the video. Did you teach yourself graphic design?
Thank you for watching and showing love! No I haven’t learned graphic design myself, the basics I learned in art school. But hey they only gonna teach you 10% the rest you have to learn yourself 🙏🏻 and that’s interest, passion and dedication 🙌🏻
@@Typefool That motivates me.
Thank you for your answer
@@oooBoEoNooo you're welcome!
🤩 Brother, KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!
Thank you! appreciate the kind words, that keeps me going 😁
Amazing video, thank you for sharing this with us! Just wondering would you consider creating a video showing us how to create professional looking social media posts for eg Instagram?
Thank you for the kind words! Happy to hear you like it. Would there be much demand for this type of content?
@@Typefool I definitely think so, I have been creating content for a while, and definitely would like to learn how to do it properly and make it more engaging for my followers
@@manipulatingminds_ Thanks for sharing your insight! This could be an interesting topic indeed, I'll put it on my video idea list! 👊
Great video and very helpful, thank you. I am currently working on my grid game, and I have one simple question that I struggle with to get me started on a project; at the very start of a design project how do you make the decision as to what grid you use, what's the decision process? It seems this decision will really effect to entire project so it's important to get that part right? Thank you in advance, I am now a Subsciber.
Thanks for the kind words, and welcome to Typefool's family! haha 😊 For choosing a grid at the start of a design project, for me it is about matching the grid to the project’s needs. I usually start by considering the content and layout requirements. If you have lots of content, a more complex grid might work better. For simpler designs, a basic grid could be sufficient. I think the key is to find a grid that supports your design goals and keeps everything organised. And again I’m excited to have you on board!
@@Typefool Thank you for the reply, much appreciated. I agree that grids are very important, so i'll be hoping to make further vids on the subject :). Your concise appraoch is great btw, keep it up.
@@matthewslocombe9571 thank you! I appreciate that! Yes I will make more videos about grids in the future because they are important and I like to work with them.
Have a quick question. When you are making modular grid, do you consider matching it to the baseline?
Hi Keith! Thank you for your question!
Yes, when I work with a lot of text, I match my modular grid to the baseline grid. This ensures all text lines up consistently across the entire document. It helps maintain alignment and readability throughout the design. Is this something what you think would be interesting for another video?
@@Typefool Thank you! Would be super helpful if you create video related to that. Thanks for the quality contents always~
Thanks typefool
You're welcome!
random question. did you by chance use an eye contact filter in making this video? just asking, because i'm considering whether or not to use one in my own videos...
@@js_guyman Hi there! Nope I didn’t used one, I use some kind of teleprompter so I can read some text and bulletpoints while I am looking to the camera!
thank you 👋
Thank you! For hanging around 🙏🏻😁
thanks
You're welcome!
Great video
Thank you 🙏🏻!
Thank you.....
You are welcome! 🙏🏻
Oh, I have a question, why sometimes in some books or editorials the margins are not on the centre of page, I saw a book of the futur, the margins were on right and top ( the space was less to the document edge compared to the opposite direction )
Yes sure! That's right Mohamed, often in books or magazines with a lot of pages, more margins are used on the inside where the fold is. Because this fold in the middle of the book which actually eliminates a space. Therefore, they more often give more margins to the page in the inside. To make the content look optically in the middle :).
how do you know how many columns, rows and gutters you need for your design?
Good question! I think the number of rows and columns depends on your content and design needs and the complexity of the layout you want. What you can do is start with a basic grid of 4 rows 8 columns, and adjust it based on how you want to structure text, images, and other elements.
@@Typefool It would be great to have a video or several in the future if that tells you something about the subject. What do you think ?
Very useful
Hi Bharat, I am happy to hear it was useful!
You are best
Cheers mate, thanks for the kind words!
Wow! 👏👏👏
Thank you! 🙏🏻
I'm in design class. DND, please!
Haha I hope you enjoyed it! ✌
people talk about grids and tables like there's unlimited dimensions and ways to make layouts
12:48 The German urge to say numbers backwards.
Haha, I’m actually Dutch, not German! 😄 But you’re right, we in the netherlands also have a knack for saying numbers backwards sometimes. People often mistake me for German because I grew up and live close to the German border, and our Dutch accent here sounds quite similar to German. Thanks for the laugh, hope you enjoyed the video!
Goooood
Thaaaaaankss!!
Why do you make the grid and then sometimes not snap text boxes to it, like "innovative design" around 13:49?
I noticed that the H2 text is too long or the font is too big to be fitting inside one row or too small for two rows, that perhaps you decided to put H3 in the middle of the grid's gutter... but are these instances where you have to eyeball it a bit to make it look good or are there nice golden ratio-esque "rules" you can follow for such moments?
Because of this, the first bodycopy also doesn't snap to the top of it's grid box. And it seems as if you just randomly threw in the last bodycopy (quote?) xD
Hey! Thanks so much for the thoughtful question - I love that you're paying close attention! 😊 You’re totally right; at that point in the video, I was setting up the header and paragraph styles, and I hadn’t focused on snapping everything exactly to the grid yet. My main goal was to dial in the font sizes and spacing to get a feel for how it all works together visually.
Later in the process, I do make adjustments to align everything nicely with the grid. There are times, though, where it’s more about finding a balance that just looks ‘right’ - sometimes the grid helps, and sometimes a little eyeballing does the trick! With certain text sizes, it can be tricky to get a perfect fit, so I focus on overall harmony instead. Hope that clears it up a bit! Thanks again for watching and sharing such great insights!
@@Typefool Thank you for your reply and answering my question! :D It helps me a lot with my new graphic design job after switching from 3D. I don't want to realize in 2 years that I've been making rookie mistakes all the time :P
suprised you're not creating your modular grid based on your type leading.
Hi! That is funny, I am learning at the moment how to set up a modular grid based on the baseline grid. 😁 I haven't finished learning yet haha.
IYKYK
the title is misleading. it should be "steps to turn grids on in indesign." not everyone uses indesign unfortunately. i came for theory, left disappointed. rename your title!
Hi! Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I get where you're coming from. My goal with this video was to dive into the theory of grids and show why they’re so valuable for achieving clean, balanced layouts-no matter the software. UA-cam’s algorithm also favors broader titles to help more people discover content like this. But I’ll keep your feedback in mind for future videos and see if I can include more specific tool tips in the description or in future uploads. Thanks for watching, and I hope the insights on grid theory were helpful!