Grid Based Web Design
By now CSS, or more correctly, CSS2 is the gold standard behind all new websites. Web and interactive designers find themselves constantly trying to keep up with the rules and constraints placed upon them. As code standardizes, web designers have coalesced into group that prefer one method over the other. At Digital Canvas, we have begun designing web sites that utilize the 960.gs method of developing some sites based on 12 and 16 column frameworks.
This has allowed us to rapidly deploy sites based on proven site structure code. The evolution of CSS standards allowed content to be separated from structure and design. The grid takes it one more step and makes design independent of structural code.
Though designing within a structural grid can be extremely limiting, it lets us focus on the aesthetic and conveyance of content in a usable and accessible manner. Grid based web design is both a blessing and a curse, it allows code to standardized, but may also lead to standardized designs and a "thinking inside the div" mentality. But like with any tool, knowing how and when to use it, is more important that applying a blanket approach.
Learn more about CSS from the following helpful sites:
There are tons more, but these are the ones we refer to. BTW, CSS3 is coming soon. Stay tuned and happy CSSing!
Labels: css, grid based design, interactive, structural code, tricks of the trade, web design
