Testing the Grid 960 system

• Author: Stuart Brockwell
• Posted: August 6th, 2010
• Tags: prototype, web development

What is the Grid 960 System and is it a viable tool for the future of web development?

• Comments: Both comments and pings are currently closed.

For those that don’t know (I wasn’t up until a few weeks ago), Grid 960 is a system to try and ’streamline web development workflow’. The system works by using a set of columns (either 12 or 16) within a set width of 960px. The purpose of this system is to make prototyping websites faster and more efficient, which is something that all designers inevitably strive for. Here is a link to the site if this seems a little confusing, 960 Grid System…

With this premise in mind, I set about trying to create a simple website that uses the grid system, after seeing many successful examples on the grid 960 website. It took me a while to get to grips with the logic of the system, but once I had crossed that bridge it really made sense of how easy it was to bring all elements together. I had, relatively quickly, created a website that had a strong structure, although it was extremely basic. I then tried to takethe grid further, by attempting to replicate the Scotts Porage website, and then issues started to occur, such as breaking out of the fixed 960px width for the top banner. I found, that when I really needed to get into designing something more complex, customising the CSS to suit was quite difficult. In addition to such issues, the whole system seemed glitchy; precision and caution had to be taken otherwise the whole site could easily break.

Overall, I thought it was a great concept, and if you really got to grips with using it prototyping would definitely become quicker, as you could set yourself a template and build original sites around this. Nevertheless, I find it far more satisfying to know that I have coded a website from scratch, and when approaching more complex elements (I haven’t even considered the use of Flash or jQuery) issues with the system may occur. Problems are far easier to fix when you have written the code, rather than trawling through second-hand code.

Comments.

• Respond to this post: Leave a comment
• Comments: No responses to this article

Comments are closed.