Hey Everybody,
I’m going to do a few short posts about strategies for building grids more quickly and consistently as you grow your library of MGP assets. At this point, I’ve made about 300 grids and customized a bunch of pre-existing ones, as well thousands of elements of all kinds: buttons, switches, faders, icons, palettes, etc. It’s been a years-long process in figuring out what works best when creating something new.
Strategy 1: Common Grids
Common Grids are the golden ticket to speed when designing anything in MGP. If you’re not familiar with how they work, take a few minutes to go through the guide or watch video tutorials about their use. They can become a repository for all kinds of things you’ll need as you go.
It’s not just about being able copy/paste entire grids into new locations. That’s a great thing to begin with, but there’s immense value in making what I call asset groups. They can range from a single button to a focused group of elements that you’ve designed to address something specific, but need to apply to different scenarios. Or you have a set of common elements that you need to access SO often that even using Omnispace gets in the way. It’s also key for maintaining visual consistency across grids and making sure you have the latest, best version of what you’re accessing when you add it to a new grid. That consistency is a foundational element of solid workflow management because as you train your brain to reach for certain things in certain places on grids, the closer you can get to making that same action an identical experience in as many places as possible, the more efficient your workflow will become.
For example, I have a few common grids that are devoted to specific groups of buttons or faders that I want laid out exactly the same in every grid they’re in. That common grid isn’t laid out in any particular way, it’s just a storage bin that I can access at any time. I grab the block of elements I need and move it to whatever grid I’m building. I do the same for button arrays, menu buttons, specific switches, X/Y pads, etc. They’re always available immediately and I never have to worry about making sure things are set up identically from grid to grid. If I update something, I only have to do it ONCE and go forward knowing that what’s in the common grid is the latest version of whatever I’m grabbing. It saves a lot of steps and search time when pulling together new grids.
That’s it. Very simple, but VERY useful. Strategy 2 coming soon!
M
Plus, I’m often looking for a few elements at a time. Moving around full grids to grab a couple buttons for different workspaces takes a LOT more steps.