“mies, my great mentor said: “God is in the details.” that is the essence of syntax: the discipline that controls the proper use of grammar in the construction of phrases and the articulation of a language, design. the syntax of design is provided by many components in the nature of the project. in graphic design, for instance, they are the overall structure, the grid, the typefaces, the text and headlines, the illustrations, etc. the consistency of a design is provided by the appropriate relationship of the various syntactical elements of the project: how type relates to grids and images from page to page throughout the whole project. or, how type sizes relate to each other. or, how pictures relate to each other and how the parts relate to the whole. there are ways to achieve all this that are correct, as there are others that are incorrect, and should be avoided.

syntactic consistency is of paramount importance in graphic design as it is in all human endeavors. grids are one of the several tools helping designers to achieve syntactical consistency in graphic design.”

take from the vignelli canon.