Fluid Design Vs Absolute Design

Fluid Design Vs Absolute Design:

In web page building you generally have two main options,
Fluid and Absolute.

If you are from the art world and are used to absolutes then designing for the web can be a hard transition to adjust to.

You want that so-and-so the exact color, size, and location that you want it.
This is an Absolute-ist way of thinking.

The language of the web was not designed for absolutes but rather to display information on a broad range of devices.

This broad range of devices that your masterpiece will display on, each with their different strengths and weaknesses, is what is so hard for traditional designers to adjust to.

As a designer you will never know how your masterpiece will display for your audience that you will never see.

One can do absolutes in web page building but you rule out a large portion of your viewers and their needs.

Fluid, for example, allows your viewers to make the text a size they can read, rather than just look artistic on the page. A fluid page can change shape and size to better match the width of the screen of the viewer.

Making your page be accessible and work for a broad range of people, browsers, devices and operating systems is a Fluid-ist way of the thinking.

Not everyone has a new 30 inch high resolution LCD. But some do. Others will see your work at 640 by 480.

As a designer you actually have no real way to rule your design with an iron fist an force THEM to see your work the way you want THEM to see it.

Not unless you buy them all new machines. Oh, and heal them all to perfect vision and such.

And…

This is not to say there are not many valid reasons to design using absolutes. There are…

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