[esdott]

For those who think that you can simply build something “fluid” or “flexible,” it’s a lot harder than it seems. A lot of the industry jargon comes from print and the printing process; margins, padding, kerning, spacing, etc. There is no such thing as a fluid layout on a printing press (as far as I know :-). So we are stuck with a language to describe design based on a different era. Additionally, in the design phase you HAVE to select a layout/viewport for proofs and examples. Which in turn the client will expect to look exactly right on every surface. There is obviously room for client education and pushback but fluid designs seem like an afterthought in html/css where we are adding new features on top of html/css that are best used in a fixed width based system.

[eternityforest]

If you learn non fluid design first it seems hard. In absolute terms, it's really just a matter of using flexbox and percents, and being willing to just scrap your design idea and do something else if it doesn't map nicely to something fluid.

Client education is a challenge and all, they often have ideas in mind that are very specific (For some reason clients invariably like the simplest thing that's the least general and most direct of a translation from a basic analog system...). But on the technical side... once you stop making designs that rely on being able to control exactly where everything goes it gets a lot easier.