AlexAitken.net

The grid-based design be­hind much of today’s web was re­vealed to me a few years back as I was serving as in-house Tech­nic­al Lead for a ma­jor cor­por­ate re­design. My team worked with de­sign­ers from an ex­tern­al agency, and as their comps star­ted com­ing across the wire it was quickly clear that visu­al com­pon­ents were be­ing aligned to a four-column grid. Every­one liked the or­der and or­gan­iz­a­tion af­forded by the grid. When it came time to turn comps in­to code we went with the 960.gs css frame­work and to this day, design and de­vel­op­ment of new solu­tions takes place with­in the con­text of the grid.

The code is the product, and it’s called ‘code’ for a reason… Not because we use it to veil messages and intentions, but because it’s only after years of diligence that that we learn to use it in ways that are transparent, interpretable, and maintainable.

The first internet revolution unfolded when we figured out how to provide things over the wire. I was working as a ‘media analyst’ at a PR research firm in 1999 when the major organizational challenge was in moving customers from a periodically-mailed software CD to a model that delivered the software and its updates in near-real-time over the web. At about the same time, I signed up for my first internet-based banking experience. This was new stuff. This was functionality from afar. We could actually go to web addresses not just for information, but to make stuff happen.