Resources
For a more complete history behind the typographic grid, I’d suggest the following:
- Wikipedia’s entry on the canons of page construction: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/57/
- The New Typography by Jan Tschichold (Second Edition, University of California Press, 2006): http://bkaprt.com/rwd/58/
- Grid Systems in Graphic Design by Josef Müller-Brockmann (Verlag Niggli AG): http://bkaprt.com/rwd/59/
In looking at how grids apply specifically to web design, I’d suggest:
- Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design by Khoi Vinh (New Riders Press, 2010): http://bkaprt.com/rwd/60/
- A Practical Guide to Designing Grid Systems for the Web by Mark Boulton (Five Simple Steps, forthcoming): http://bkaprt.com/rwd/61/
- Mark Boulton’s blog entry, “A Richer Canvas”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/62/
- The Grid System: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/63/
- My article for A List Apart on “Fluid Grids”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/64/
Looking for a reference on media queries? While the following two links are somewhat tech-y, I think they’re still accessible, fantastic reads:
- The W3C’s media query specification: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/65/
- Mozilla’s developer reference on media queries: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/66/
If you’re working with images and other media in a flexible context, I recommend checking out:
- Filament Group’s “Responsive Images” script: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/67/, with related blog entries: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/68/, http://bkaprt.com/rwd/69/
- Richard Rutter’s original image resizing experiments: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/70/
- Bryan Rieger’s early experiments with image adaptation: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/71/
For more information to help you decide when and how to adopt a responsive approach, I’d recommend:
- John Allsopp’s seminal “A Dao of Web Design”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/72/
- Luke Wroblewski’s articles on “mobile first”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/47/, with related readings available http://www.lukew.com/ff/archive.asp?tag&mobilefirst
- Jeremy Keith’s “One Web”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/73/and “Context”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/74/
- Tim Kadlec’s entry on “Responsive Web Design and Mobile Context”: http://bkaprt.com/rwd/75/
- Josh Clark (http://bkaprt.com/rwd/76/) and Jason Grigsby (http://bkaprt.com/rwd/77/) round up some great discussions to help you decide when a responsive approach is appropriate, and for which projects. (You should be reading Josh and Jason’s blogs anyway.)
- My own blog entries on “With Good References” (http://bkaprt.com/rwd/78/) and “Toffee-Nosed” (http://bkaprt.com/rwd/79/).