The 960 Grid For Web Design Layout

The 960 Grid is making quite an impact on web design both for web site designers and web template developers. RocketTheme recently switched to using the 960 Grid for their templates and for their new Gantry Framework.

"The 960 Grid System is an effort to streamline web development workflow by providing commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels. There are two variants: 12 and 16 columns, which can be used separately or in tandem."

For VitalBodies own web site we needed to find a solution that would enable us to customize an Open Source template with our own artwork, CSS and webmaster skills. We choose Open Source Quasar Template which uses the Gantry Framework. Customizing a template like this takes a lot of work but we feel that the payoff will be a template we can use for a long time and module positions that will be consistent from site to site. If you want to buy a pre-made template consider giving RocketTheme a try.

960 Grid We like how easy this system is to use for being so powerful...

We have found that the 960 grid is really helpful and easy to learn and use. If your building web sites you should consider learning about the grid and see if it fits into your work flow. Designers have created really awesome looking sites using the grid, and there are more and more templates based upon it.

1Streamlines web development workflow.

2Provids commonly used dimensions, based on a width of 960 pixels.

3Templates for: Fireworks, Flash, InDesign, GIMP, Inkscape, Illustrator, OmniGraffle, Photoshop, Visio, Exp. Design are free to download.