Call me ignorant or ill-informed, because this is the first time that I have heard of 'grid systems'. Although the idea is trivial, since all architects, designers, engineers or even musicians make uses of the grids ever so often, it became a movement and powerful tools for producing fast and solid designs in recent years.

As is true in typography, as is in music, and other forms of human creative expression, the delicate balance between fill and empty spaces, between sound and silence, or isolation and convergence is the soul of a great piece of art.

The Grid System approach can help you organizing your content by making you look to your drawing from the perspective of shapes and empty spaces that need to be balanced, using hidden lines and simple grids that guides and serves as a hidden (sometimes visible) proportional structure.

Rick, Creative Director of ColorCharge

Tired of the 2-columns, 3 columns or content-menu layouts? Grid systems might be the way out of the mundane, routined interface design. Using grids to assist in controlling content organization and separation, both typography and layout of a page may transform into a magzine foldout or structural blueprints giving readers a fresh, unconventional experience.

Rick, director of ColorCharge, has kindly collated a set of useful links to grid system related books and websites in Inspiration Charge of April: Grid Systems. He has also recommended the following books:

• Grid Systems in Graphic Design, by Josef Muller-Brockmann, Josef Muller - Brockmann
• Grid Systems: Principles of Organizing Type, by Kimberly Elam

For web design and development tools:

• Yahoo! UI Library: Grids CSS
• The Grid System