Liquid Website Design

There is a problem on the internet, which many Print Based Designer struggle to understand: The View Port.

The issue comes when you look at the size (and now shape) of the screen on which people view the internet. When the internet was young most people had either 14 or 15 inch screens, with resolutions of 640x480 or 800x600. Since then we have gone to 17 and 19 inch screens (and larger) and also now wide screens. These larger screens have resolutions like 1280x1200 or 1440x900 or 1600x1024.

The first figure in the numbers above, accounts for the widest image which can be displayed without scrolling sideways.

This means that your website must be able to display properly on a variety of different sizes. There are a number of solutions to this...

Make the content of the website narrow enough to be visible on all machines - this can be ugly on large screens, especially if pinned to the left side.
Make the content of the website narrow enough to be visible on most machines - this can work for image intensive sites, especially if centered.
Make the content of the website change width automatically to fit the available space.

The Last of these points is Liquid design, imagine the website content being poured into the screen, and it filling whatever width is available.

Lastly, for a practical demonstration of this, try re-sizing this website window, you will see that the width of the website changes to match.

If your website could benefit from liquid design, please contact us for a free consultation.

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