Implications of Column Width

The challenge has been set, can the web development community discuss design in an intelligent manner, voicing opinions but then reinforcing them with concrete details?

The whole fixed vs. fluid layout debate resurfaced a little while ago. I have my own opinion, that a fixed width web page is not a true web-native document but a holdover from print layout that hasn't been fully translated into the medium, but this is a rule that I will break (as with this site) when the content merits it. On page 163 in Elements of Typographic Style Robert Bringhurst brings up arguments for narrow column widths, as well as reasons to go a little wider:

If the text is meant to invite continuous reading, set it in columns that are clearly taller than wide.

Horizontal motion predominates in alphabetic writing, and for beginners, it predominates in reading. But vertical motion predominates in reading for those who have really acquired the skill. The tall column of type is a symbol of fluency, a sign that the typographer does not expect the reader to have to puzzle out the words.

The very long and very narrow columns of newspaper and magazines, however, have come to suggest disposable prose and quick, unthoughtful reading. A little more width not only gives the text more presence; it implies that it might be worth savoring, quoting and reading again.

What I take from this is that finding the right column width is a balancing act, weighted by the purpose and language of the content. Quick snippets of thought, such as the text in a blog, should use a narrower column to facilitate fast reading. Longer well thought out articles, like the ones at Design by Fire, could use a longer line to slow the reading to a more deliberate pace better suited to taking in the ideas presented. Either way it is essential to find the appropriate text size and leading to match the line length.

It's all well and good to pontificate these ideas at each other, but what can we actually do to foment change? I suggest that we press whoever is writing the copy for a project, whether they be staff writers, the marketing people, or a project manager actually doing some work for a change, to give us at least a first draft of the text for a website before we move past brainstorming for the first round of design work. The request should be sugar coated of course, "your message is the most important aspect of the site and we want the design to reflect it," whatever it takes to not have the content get shoehorned in at the last minute as it so often is.

Except for a change in the contest rules forcing a total re-write I almost succeeded in using the following rapid web standards based development process on what I've nicknamed the "big yellow sofa website". The copy was provided first, then I wrote the HTML and filled in all the pages. The plan at that point was to design the site in Photoshop and add that design with CSS as soon as I received the poster from the print marketing. Unfortunately, on the same day I finally got the poster they scrapped the copy, so it was business as usual.

Next up: Baseline Grid. Can pixel perfect vertical motion be achieved in HTML and CSS? And to up the ante even more, can pixel perfect baseline grid be achieved within a horizontally flexible layout?