Two of the main principles of design are rhythm and alignment. This is true for any design medium. When I started doing web design (poorly, by the way) back in the early 00s, there were very few design systems for the web. I wanted to build a tool for building grid systems, but my coding skills were subpar. I came up with some basic CSS concepts. Fast forward a few years, and I came across Readymag's builder, which has a cool feature that allows you to create a grid overlay with columns. I wanted to mimic that with JavaScript. I had some mild success but the project got put aside due to other priorities. Fast forward several years again, and after countless iterations, I finally turned it into a Chrome extension called LayoutLab. Maybe I released it a little late in the game, but I genuinely enjoyed building it. And if it helps even a few designers create cleaner, more thoughtful layouts, then it was worth the effort.

LayoutLab

A tool for measuring previewing grid systems on any website.

A tool for measuring previewing grid systems on any website.