Design an intelligent liquid layout with CSS

How-to
By
published

Anthony Zinni shows you how to use CSS to make a liquid page layout that expands on screen and adapts for print.

With the growing variation of computers and monitor resolutions hitting the market, designing a website that intelligently fills available screen space has become a critical concern. Liquid layouts expand to fill high-end widescreen monitors and avoid forcing viewers with older hardware to endure a lesser experience. However, this flexibility comes with its own set of technical restrictions and design considerations.

The subject of liquid layouts is a complex one, but after completing this simple tutorial you'll have gained all the necessary fundamentals. We'll use CSS to control the overall width of the website and make sure that blocks of copy remain within a comfortable line length for reading. Then we'll review a technique to crop images and maintain a consistent column structure, and add a conditional style sheet to make sure the layout works in older versions of Internet Explorer. Finally, we'll use a print style sheet to adapt our liquid layout for an optimised printout of the website.

Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access

Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription

Join now for unlimited access

Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1

TOPICS
Creative Bloq Staff

The Creative Bloq team is made up of a group of design fans, and has changed and evolved since Creative Bloq began back in 2012. The current website team consists of eight full-time members of staff: Editor Georgia Coggan, Deputy Editor Rosie Hilder, Ecommerce Editor Beren Neale, Senior News Editor Daniel Piper, Editor, Digital Art and 3D Ian Dean, Tech Reviews Editor Erlingur Einarsson and Ecommerce Writer Beth Nicholls and Staff Writer Natalie Fear, as well as a roster of freelancers from around the world. The 3D World and ImagineFX magazine teams also pitch in, ensuring that content from 3D World and ImagineFX is represented on Creative Bloq. 

Related articles