Introduction

Although, there are many similarities between the design of a Web page and the design of a traditional printed page, there are also some fundamental differences. These differences can be attributed almost entirely to the different publication media ~ the printed page and the computer screen or the so called electronic page of the Web browser.

Page or Paper Sizes

If you are designing a printed page, you generally know the size of the paper that will be used to publish the document. Paper or page sizes have been standardised for many years. Australia adopted the ISO 216 paper size standard when it moved to the metric system of measurement in 1966.

So what has this to do with Web page design? Nothing directly, other than to emphasise that the desktop publisher or graphic designer is dealing with a fixed size format (usually in a portrait orientation) for his or her publications. Even more valuable is the fact that the aspect ratio of all formats within a single series remains constant ~ A3 is twice A4 which in turn is twice A5 etc.

For the Web page designer, the page formats are not fixed, in some cases do not even retain the same aspect ratio and the viewing area is almost exclusively oriented as landscape.