11/10/2023 0 Comments Inbound fluid image layout![]() ![]() Do I really have to thank IE for this? #section3įaced with an insurmountable problem, I did what I do best: avoid it altogether. As almost all of the grid-based designs I could list off at that time were rigidly fixed-width, I was left with a prickly question: how do you create a fluid grid?Īs it turns out, it’s simply a matter of context. ![]() Instead, I was left with a sobering fact: while we’d designed a rather complex grid to serve the client’s content needs, the client-and by extension, the client’s users-was asking for a fluid layout. Of course, when I was coding the site, I didn’t have the luxury of writing a diatribe on the evils of fixed-width design. If a user doesn’t meet the requirements of “minimum screen resolution,” well, then, it’s the scrollbar for them, isn’t it? These users always browse with a maximized 1024-768 window, and are never running, say, an OLPC laptop, or looking at the web with a monitor that’s more than four years old. “Minimum screen resolution” lets us design for a contrived subset of users who see our design as god and Photoshop intended. Instead of exploring the benefits of flexible web design, we rely on a little white lie: “minimum screen resolution.” These three words contain a powerful magic, under the cover of which we churn out fixed-width layout after fixed-width layout, perhaps revisiting a design every few years to “bump up” the width once it’s judged safe enough to do so. Minimum screen resolution: a little white lie #section2 They’ve also utterly failed to seize the imagination of web designers. They put control of our designs firmly in the hands of our users and their browsing habits. Fluid layouts are an undervalued commodity in web design. Normally, this would cause me to rejoice both noisily and embarrassingly. However, our client had one last, heart-stopping requirement: the design had to be fluid and resize with the browser window. And why not? After a few minutes of griddy thinking, the benefits become clear: designers gain a rational, structured framework for organizing content and users gain well-organized, legible sites. ![]() And frankly, the idea’s been a smash hit: a million CSS frameworks have bloomed, with sundry tools to complement them, each built to make grid-based design even more accessible to the average designer. Thanks to the advocacy of Mark Boulton, Khoi Vinh, and others, we’ve seen a resurgence of interest in the typographic grid, and how to use it on the web. Over the past few years, this sort of thinking has become more common. Brief books for people who make websites. ![]()
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