Page Width Layout

Which format is best

[gabby]

There seems to be 2 schools of thought on how wide a web page should be.

Some web sites are wide enough to fill the whole screen, while others are only about 60% of the screen width.

Some are aligned to the left, and some are centered. Lots of white (or colored) space in the margins.

I suppose the latter more closely resembles a sheet of paper, while the former allows more content "above the fold."

Which layout is best, and why?

[prairie]

I guess there's no "best" layout, but I'd tend to avoid having people read text from edge to edge.

Large chunks of text put a lot of people off too, there's no need to pack text in, screen space is fleeting.

[jo1ene]

If you're doing less than full width (full being 1024 resolution), I would definately center it.

I think that full width looks lame unless you have the content to fill it up. It would also depend on your audience.

Some designs just don't stretch and/or shrink well. Meaning, fluid layouts don't always work out the way we would hope. Maybe they should. I dunno... That's another thread topic.

[caveman]

We like filling the page. Take a look at this site fyi. Nice clean simple.