As we move into CSS layouts, I’ve started to pay more attention to the layouts of some of my favorite web pages. Over the years, I’ve found that layout is a learned art form. When I first began doing layout art, I was working for my college newspaper on the sports page. My first page design was a disaster! After working for hours on arranging several boxes to fill the space on the standard broadsheet, my editor came by and told me two things:
- Scrap your design
- Go out, buy a newspaper and really look at the layouts. Break them down into the boxes they are and get some ideas for making your page better.
She was absolutely right, my layout was horrible! But, after years of looking at newspapers and emulating layout designs, I’ve really improved my design capabilities. Now in web design, I’m back to the basics. I realize that I’ve been as oblivious to the underlying structure of web layouts as I was years ago with newspapers.
As designers, that’s what we really want from a layout. We don’t want the users to actively notice the columns and rows. The layout itself should make the page’s content clearly understandably, easy to navigate and intuitively elegant. I’ve learned over the years that good layouts aren’t particularly complex. The content itself should delineate how the layout works. NEVER let your layout define your content! That’s a big no-no I learned working on the newspaper. Another is when all else fails, just remember “KISS.” Keep it simple, stupid.
Before I can move on with my web layout skills, I think I’ll take my former editor’s advice and start paying more attention to the layout of sites I go to all the time. There’s a lot I’ve been missing.
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