Create a Mondrian style layout for an ad

There are a lot of different types of layout styles out there, one of them being a Mondrian layout.

In a Mondrian layout, horizontal and vertical bars divide a layout into sections like you see here.

In this tutorial, you'll create a series of frames and add content and use the Gap Tool to create this type of layout.

To get started, you'll add a series of frames in a grid that will make up the layout, then you add content.

So, to start, select the Rectangle Frame Tool in the Toolbar and you're going to start by drawing a grid of frames.

Now, don't let go with the mouse until I say.

So, starting up here, drag down to here to make a large frame.

With the mouse still held down, press the Up Arrow on your keyboard 3 times to create 4 rows of frames, and then press the Right Arrow key twice to make 3 columns of frames.

When it looks something like this, release the mouse.

With our grid of frames in place, you can now start adjusting the sizing and spacing on the frames.

To start, there are a few frames that aren't needed, these 3, so let's get rid of them.

With the Selection Tool selected, click in a blank area to deselect them all.

Then click this one, press Backspace or Delete to remove it and then do the same for these 2.

We now have the correct number of frames.

Now to adjust the horizontal and vertical gaps between the frames.

To do that, you could adjust each frame manually.

For instance, click on this frame and it needs to span this entire width here.

So, drag the right bounding point to the right.

There.

Now you can also make this easier using the Gap Tool.

The Gap Tool allows you to adjust the gapping or the spacing between a series of frames at once.

So, select the Gap Tool over here in the Toolbar and move the pointer over this gap.

When you see the gap highlight, drag to adjust all of the frames.

Do the same for this gap, since these frames also need to be different sizes, and the same for this gap.

So the frames look something like this.

Now to adjust the vertical gaps.

Move the pointer over the gap here and drag to the right, right about here, we're aiming to match something like you see in the final project on the right, drag this gap over to the right as well.

Now this frame may not have resized on yours, it did not mind because we manually adjusted it earlier.

So, to fix it, press V to select the Selection Tool, select it, and just drag it to be wider.

Then select the Gap Tool again.

Now to make both of these frames fill the area to the right, move the pointer to the right of them and drag.

Now this gap needs to be moved over to the right a little but if you move the pointer over the gap, you can see the highlight, it'll affect not only these two rectangles, but the rectangles above as well.

To only affect the vertical gap between these 2 frames, press the Shift key and with the pointer over the gap, you can see what happens here, drag to the right with the key held down, release the mouse button and then the key.

Now, same thing up here.

This gap needs to be moved up.

But if you move the pointer over it, it'll affect the entire row.

So, press the Shift key, and drag, release the mouse button and then the key.

With the grid setup now let's add some content.

So, select the Selection Tool, and let's apply some color to a few of these frames.

So, click on this frame, and to add a fill color, click the Fill color in the Properties panel and select a color like this yellow gold.

Click this next frame down here and apply another color.

We'll do this a few more times.

So, pick whatever color you want for these frames.

Now the remaining frames will actually contain images.

The 2 frames you see down here will contain a single image that spans these 2 frames.

So, to do that, you can convert them to a compound path.

Drag across the frames and choose Object, Paths, Make Compound Path.

You can now see that a single image will span across the two frames and you can tell because there's an X going across.

Now you can place your images.

So, to place the images, press Command D on macOS or Control D on Windows.

Select the 3 images you downloaded for this tutorial and click Open.

To place the first image of the surfer, click in this frame.

Click in this frame to place the next image.

And finally, click to place the last image down here.

If you want to fit the images to the frames better, you can select each of them independently and use the fitting commands over here in the Properties panel.

Now you can finish your layout by adding the text you see off the left edge of the page here.

Just drag each of the text frames into position like this.

And you've got yourself a Mondrian style layout.