8 Point Grid

How to create stronger la outs with

the ve sa ile 8pt Grid Sy tem

By Marc A drew

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 La out Grids are everything in UI Design.

Well. OK. Don’t di count Colour. Don’t fo get about T po r phy. But get your

La out Grids right, and you're half-way there in cr a ing much be ter loo ing, and

fun tio ing UIs.

Co si tent, and sca able spa ing helps you eli nate gues work whilst d sign-

ing and d ve o ing. It r quires fe er d sign d c sions. And it e ables a much

faster tur around on projects.

The 8pt Grid is pro bly one of the most co mo ly used La out Grid Sy tems

there is, and for good re son.

Let me tell you more about it in this handy guide...

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 OK. So, what is a point (pt) e actly?
A point (pt) is a mea ur ment of space that is d pen ent on screen re o tion. The

simplest e pla tion is that at a ‘1x’ re o tion (or @1x) 1pt = 1px.

'Back in the day’ when screens were 1x; 1pt equalled 1px. Then your Retina

(2x), and S per Retina (3x) screens came along and things changed. Where

desig ing for the iPhone 13 (3x) your design would then be rendered with three

times as many pi els per inch (ppi).

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 So for e ample, if you have an icon at the size of 24px, when you e port that icon

as an a set @2x and @3x the rendered i age would be either 48px (2x), or 72px

(3x), which will then look great on Retina and S per Retina di plays r spec ively.

I a ways r co mend desig ing in 1x, then e por ing your a sets at the di fer-

ent sizes (@2x, @3x etc...) as r quired. It r duces a lot of co f sion.

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 So, why 8 Points?

Like I me tioned earl er, the var ety of screen sizes and pixel den i ies has co tin-

ued to i crease which can make the job of a set ge e tion more co pli ated.

U ing an even nu ber like 8 to space, and size el ments in your design makes

sca ing for a wide var ety of devices much eas er, and more co sis ent.

The b sic pri ciple of the 8pt Grid is that you use mu tiples of 8 (8, 16, 24, 32,

40, 48 etc...) to ma gins, pa ding, and som times d me sions, on el ments i side

your design.

I a ways think in 8s now when cr a ing my UIs, with the odd o c sion when I’ll call

upon 4pt, for e ample when desig ing for M bile where the screen real e tate is

li ited.

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 Hard, or Soft Grid met od?

'Soft Grid’ for the win every time!

When I’ve cr ated UIs b fore I’ve a ways o ted to use the ‘Soft Grid’ a proach,

where you simply mea ure 8pt i cr ments between i d vid al el ments in your

design.

This as o posed to the ‘Hard Grid’ a proach which places el ments into a grid

pa tern de ned in 8pt i cr ments which I nd a little too r gid and not pra ti al for

when it comes time to code up a design.

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 Icons & The 8pt Grid
When it comes to icons and the 8pt Grid, you will nd that most of them have been

d signed to sit i side of frames that are mu tiples of 8 (16×16, 24×24, 32×32

etc…)

If not, then make sure that any icon that you drop into your design you frame it

i side a co tai er that uses a value that is a mu tiple of 8 (ie; 24×24). This will just

e able icons to be laid out co sis ently wit in your UIs.

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 T p graphy & The 8pt Grid

When it comes to Type, u ing the 4pt Baseline Grid alon side the 8pt Grid gives

you a much more ha m n ous ve ti al rhythm throug out your designs.

Simply align your type to a Baseline Grid of 4, which uses a line-height value

that is a mu tiple of 4 (4, 8, 12, 16, 20 etc...)

Why 4? Well, for me pe so ally, I’ve found that sca ing my Baseline Grid in mul-

tiples of 8 in the past has just pushed the text too far apart when wor ing with cer-

tain text sizes.

The 4pt Baseline Grid gives you more ne-grained co trol, and brings much

be ter re ults.

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 Hop fully with this brief ove view of the 8pt Grid you’ll now feel co ent in la ing

out your UIs faster, with more co sis ency, less gues work, and fe er design de-

cisions r quired.

Give 8 Points a try. Your designs will look 10x be ter for it.

Oh. And if you’re wan ng more aw some tips like these then you can Join my

Wee ly New letter here - https://www ma ca drew.me

Many thanks

Marc

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