Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design

Chapter 6. The Fluid Grid

by Ethan Marcotte

The author invited renowned Web designer/developer Ethan Marcotte to contribute this insightful chapter to the book.

	The Way is shaped by use, But then the shape is lost. Do not hold fast to shapes But let sensation flow into the world As a river courses down to the sea.
	--Dao De Jing

In recent years, there’s been a resurgence of interest in grid-based design and how it applies to the Web. As it turns out, the idea’s a pretty old one, coming out of the world of print design from the early 20th century. Modernist designers of that time advocated that print design should be returned to a more type-centric style, stripped of pointless illustration and other subjective indulgences. They argued that all this ...