[cooop]

> The letters are hanging in the air, i think a good demonstration would show the baseline of the letters to coincide with the line pattern!

Why?

Like OP has demonstrated, this isn't how CSS works.

To do so because this is how things are done in print is backwards.

You could argue letters sitting on their baseline feels nicer to you, though I'd argue this was form over function.

Nice work, OP.

[grey-area]

Like OP has demonstrated, this isn't how CSS works. To do so because this is how things are done in print is backwards. You could argue letters sitting on their baseline feels nicer to you, though I'd argue this was form over function.

This isn't a baseline - a typographic baseline aligns with the baseline of the letters because this is actually useful in design for example in order to line up pictures with the baseline. No-one said this 'feels nicer' it looks bad when pictures almost align but not quite with text, or when two columns of text don't align (check out CSS columns[1] for more examples of this lack of attention to typography in the spec messing up layout). If you call this a baseline, you'd probably steal sheep! [2]

CSS was created without much reference to traditional typography, and thus makes it hard to do good designs with grids, baselines etc. This is a failing in the CSS spec, not something to be celebrated as the new ideal. There are entire frameworks out there trying to address all the failings of CSS when doing proper design (Bootstrap, Foundation etc all feature grids, something CSS is lacking). It's a shame the creators of CSS didn't consider more deeply the centuries of thought people have put into placing type on a page (or vellum, or a stone wall, or a poster, or a screen, or a phone, many of these rules apply to any medium in varying degrees). If they had we'd have avoided a lot of the hoops people have to jump through just to produce pleasing designs.

I'm not clear why this grid is useful for web design, except perhaps as an illustration of another facet of CSS which is broken by design? Why would you want to align elements with the bottom of the line box as defined by CSS (which is usually invisible)?

[1] http://zomigi.com/blog/deal-breaker-problems-with-css3-multi...

[2] http://www.webtypography.net/Rhythm_and_Proportion/Horizonta...

[joshnh]

Spot on. Perhaps I could have used a different term, but 'baseline' gives visitors an immediate sense of what the tool does.

The purpose is to mimic the effect of a print baseline by enforcing vertical rhythm, and while not perfect, it's often better than none at all.