¶ Interesting that recently Stopdesign and Simplebits have both subtly redesigned to be fixed width – moving away from their previous liquid designs.
I’d love to know why. I guess that Doug and Dan would say it’s to ensure the text on their sites is readable. If that is the reason then I’m not sure it was necessary – both sites use relatively large text which is well leaded (large line-height) to provide good readability, even when the lines of text are quite long (maximised on a 1280×1024 screen for example).
A curious development in the world of Web design; some might say a step backwards…?
Comments
1
I noticed the redesign at Stop Design too, and found it faintly annoying. Now I have acres of unused screen real estate again.
I have always felt that delivering a fluid layout somehow rewards people for shelling out a fortune on 21-inch monitors and running high screen resolutions.
2
I prefer the SimpleBits look to the new StopDesign look, all that black is out of place. I can’t help thinking that the SimpleBits background could be a bit lighter – it’s far too dark at the moment.
Thanks to sites like this and sidesh0w, liquidity is still alive.
3
Relevant discussions here:
http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/design/death_of_liquid_layouts.php and
http://www.deltatangobravo.com/archives/2003/november/dontfencemein
This is one of those frustrating debates that can never be really solved. There are points for either conclusion, but in the end I think it boils down to whether you see your web pages as a printed page or a flexible document. Personally, I love liquid layouts both to design and to use, and I think they have an advantage in user-friendliness.
I can’t for the life of me see why Doug and Dan made the switch. I tend to think that if they didn’t write posts about it, they may not be so sure themselves.
4
I’d agree with David on Dan’s success over Doug’s with the transition.. all that black is far too distracting.
I was actually thinking about this very topic, waiting for a comment on either of their sites explaining the change. Hopefully we’ll get one soon…
5
I know that a liquid design is suppose to be better but long line are harder to read. Until all browser support the min-width/max-width, I’ll be in the camp of Fixed width.
6
Stephane – under many circumstances long lines are indeed harder to read. But that statement alone over-simplifies the issue. The reality of success, as always, lies in the execution.
Neither SimpleBits nor Stop Design were hard to read when in liquid form – far from it, even on massive resolutions. Similarly, Clagnut has liquid layout and I don’t believe that its lines of text are too long to be readable.
All three sites achieved good readability with liquid layouts by having non-tiny text, generous line-heights (‘leading’ to typographers) and text blocks & white space that are sized in proportion to the viewer’s window.
7
[rant]
Since the Web is not designed to be viewed on one fixed hardware spec, it does not make sense to design for a “fixed” viewport.
Nintendo and Microsoft (XBOX) etc. can design games with highly specific requirements and behavior due to the fact that everyone is using identical hardware under those systems and their limitations are known.
As the Web is viewed on a huge range of platforms and devices with varying features and limitations, design should be accommodating to various types of hardware; gracefully degrading, at the least, for those “under” the common spec, and flexible enough to take advantage of benefits of better hardware etc. for those who are above.
Fluidity in design I think is one small nice example of this.
[/rant]
8
You just have to experience this website to realise that liquid designs are not so bad, that you should turn your back on them…
It there’s browser space to use, why not use it??
9
The thing I don’t like about liquid design is if the browser is sized down to much. the text runs out of the box.
As a designer I take great deal of time laying out a perfect page.
I hate the idea of the end user being able to destroy that layout.
10
The thing I dont like about fixed design is if the browser is sized down too much, the page disappears off the side of my monitor.
Sorry – couldn’t resist it. I guess the point is, you don’t win either way.
11
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned yet the amount of control a fixed-width layout gives. Having a bit of a print design background, I like to be able to control how wide columns of text should be. I personally design on both 1280×1024 and 1600×1200, and at the higher resolution some sites with a liquid layout end up having far too many characters in one line of text, making the page frustrating and difficult to read.
The simplebits layout is something I’m striving for in my redesign. By having the fixed width layout centered on the page, you don’t get that feeling of ‘wasted’ screen real estate.
12
I would say, IMHO, that this makes you an artist, not a designer.
A designer’s job is not to show the world how artistically skilled he/she is – it’s to make things easier for the end user.
13
Another issue with fixed widths must be when yu are not viewing on a nice monitor but on a PDA or phone. I read a lot of web content via my PDA and scrolling right just doesn’t work. Pages desiged on liquid CSS basis seem fine on PocketIE which ignores the CSS and gives you a page that flows inside my screen (240×320). And a recent survery shows most surfers don’t use browsers but the likes of RealPlayer, MediaPlayer, etc.
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