His concepts were liberating for those who had been struggling with a medium that offered almost no control. With borderless tables and resizable, transparent pixel gifs he taught many people how to make web pages that are as crisp as magazine layouts. The goal of such programs is to provide as much control over web design as a print designer has in Quark or Illustrator. But the web is not print, and other design approaches are viable. As visitors resize their browser window, the page's elements also move.
Narrow columns become wider.
Fluid Design, like Static, is about control, but it is also about letting go. What's great about the Static Approach is that it insists on the readability of text. With larger monitors and wider windows, the line of text can become too wide for easy reading, and easy reading should be the page's highest priority. What's great about the Fluid Approach is that it accepts the reality of widely varying monitor sizes and resolutions, and presents a page that seems custom-made for any resolution. The page is as wide as the window they've opened.