First things first. Here’s version 11, and it’s in beta. Which means that if you see anything you think is awry, let me know. If possible, a screenshot and the url of the afflicted page(s) will help immensely.
Anyways…
Alista has a thought-provoking article on using CSS to apparently *ahem* think outside the grid, something I obviously did with this site. Whatever. From what I read of the article, it seems to be a little misguided and confused. But the comments are gold. At least I can take consolation in the fact that other designers agree that Alista is not 100% infallible.
The grid discussion comes on the heels of not only the redesign of my own site but PDF’s recent article about structure. He observed about his own site:
I tend to carry the structure of the HTML that makes up a web page into its presentation. What I mean by that is most of the block elements tend to stack on top of or next to each other rather than flowing in, around or through each other. Even if the layout isn’t built on a fixed grid, there is often that clear separation of elements defined by right angles and gutters.
This is one of the biggest design commonalities Paul and I share. I don’t think this is a bad thing – it’s always good to start with a grid, which is why Alista’s article seemed so ludicrous to me. I could continue to elaborate, but I’m not saying anything the aforementioned comments already said.
Viva la Grid!