Designers have many more options today for doing layout than the early days of web design when tables ruled.  The terminology can seem rather confusing.  On the surface, absolute positioning may seem like the ideal.  Just tell the layout where to live on the browser window.  Everything can be measured right down to the last pixel.

But absolute designs can be, well, absolutely horrifying.  Increase font size just one click and the layout breaks.  What do you do with those who surf the web with the browser window over-riding the font size set by the designer?

An article at Autistic Cuckoo lays it out: Relatively Absolute.  It’s worth a study.  Keep in mind it’s dated, and one of the bugs it mentions in IE6 and Opera 8 have been fixed in versions 7 and 9 respectively.  However, there are plenty of people still using IE6, and I’m not ready to recommend installing IE7 anywhere yet.

So, read the article and let me know what you think.