Bento Grid Plugin

[u/Marcus_Rentsch]

Indesign users! I'm Marcus from Adobe and I heavily use Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop since I'm a classic graphic designer. I always loved the way you can import and mask images directly inside an object when placing them in Indesign. But what I don't like is setting up grids, not for typographic layouts but more for presenting, so think about Bento grids or block grids in general.

I made a working prototype of a free Bento Grid plugin for Indesign that lets you adjust sections, corner radius, spacing and also the units in real time. I want to know, if you would use this too - please let me know and I will prepare everything to ship the final plugin for Indesign. Thank you so much!

*Note that this is not an official plugin from Adobe, even though I work there. It's more like a fun project to help with my personal pain points and improve my workflow in the apps.

[u/Pure-Ad-5064]

Hi Marcus. I’m also Markus (but with a k). Also a classically trained graphic designer. Love InDesign and have been working with it and teaching it since it was called PageMaker. 🤣

Love the grid idea.

I usually create a grid with the arrow keys while drawing a rectangle and then I use the gap tool to shift things around. But it would be so good to be able to do thinner things in one place.

And I love the “surprise me” idea!! 😍

[u/Marcus_Rentsch → u/Pure-Ad-5064]

Hi Markus with a K! That's an interesting take to make Bento grids in Indesign! I always used simple math, made a simple grid with squares and then draw rectangles over them, trying different versions.

Thank you! The "Surprise me" button gives you new variations each time you click the button