Published November 14, 2005

It seems a lot of people are tired of seeing new CSS galleries launched. I don’t blame them, I’m tired of it too. I keep a running list of all the CSS galleries out there, and there’s at least 25 gallery sites in English. That’s way too many.

Unfortunately, some people seem to think that this website is “yet another CSS gallery.” Well, it’s not. Liquid Designs is devoted specifically to featuring websites with fluid width layouts. That means no fixed width layouts. That also means that about 97 percent of the websites featured at other galleries are not eligible here. It also explains why half the websites featured here have never been featured in a gallery before. You may ask, why does this matter? Let me explain.

I started this website in September to promote fluid design on the web. At the time, people were talking about fluid design as if it was dead. Almost every website was 760 pixels wide, and those few designers who actually attempted designing fluid width websites were having a lot of trouble with making them work. Clearly, Liquid Designs came at a perfect time.

To date this website has had over 100 links on del.icio.us and even a mention from Jeremy Keith. It’s been linked on quite a few websites as a great resource for designers, and that was just in the first month.

But more important than all that, I’ve been able to refer this website to people on discussion groups like css-d who were looking for help with fluid design. A few months ago I couldn’t do that… if they needed help, they had to rely on search engines to find articles scattered about the web, and actual examples were few and far between. I like to think of Liquid Designs as a central source for all that information, and as I continue to work on this website, I’ll add more information about design techniques and best practices. I think after a while people will realize that this isn’t really a CSS gallery at all… to say that is missing the point. Sure, I’ve got a gallery of websites designed with fluid layouts, because that resource isn’t available anywhere else. But it’s just that; a resource, which along with all the other resources, serves to help people make liquid design work.

I hope that explains the purpose of Liquid Designs. If this was just another CSS gallery, I would trash the whole thing right away, because I am a firm believer against repeating things that have been done before. Liquid Designs will always be different.