Remember when fluid layouts were all the rage? It seems like lately, more than 90% of the websites I frequent are using fixed layouts. The WordPress Theme Repository has more than twice the number of fixed-width themes than flexible ones. And all the sites I’ve made for clients in the past year have been fixed-width.

For the record, I usually do offer clients fluid-width designs. They choose to go fixed-width, it seems, because it makes them feel more in-control of the finished layout. And in a world of various browsers and various monitors and different resolutions, feeling in-control over something is a good thing.

The thing is: in a world of various browsers and various monitors and different resolutions, can we ever be in-control of precisely how a website is displayed?

It would be wonderful, indeed, if everyone in the world was using wide-screen monitors set at 1920×1080 resolutions and surfing on the same browser, but that’s simply not the case. My father-in-law, a tech-savvy man of 79, doesn’t like wide-screen monitors and refuses to use anything but 800×600. My mother, who insisted on a wide-screen monitor for the sole purpose of playing Farmville full-screen, doesn’t like having to scroll down a page even an inch.

Why, then, this move away from fluid layouts? Shouldn’t they be the answer to all our problems? Here, for example, is a screenshot of a 770-pixel fixed-width website, as seen on my wide-screen monitor:

I recently read about using resolution-specific stylesheets, sort of a “layout for every resolution”, and am curious to try this method out. Then again, wouldn’t it be better to design a rock-solid “hybrid” fixed and fluid layout? It may take more time, yes, but eliminates the need for multiple stylesheets or additional javascript.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. How many fluid-width sites have you designed lately?