Lightweight layout system

To make the structure of this layout simple to define and easy to customize, the Responsive Columns layout system is used. This system is only 5.9kb (minified and gzipped) and it provides a suite of powerful layout tools with the simplicity of custom HTML tags.

See the amazing things that are possible in the Responsive Columns documentation.

Full responsive design

This layout will work on devices of all sizes, from the smallest smartphone to a widescreen desktop display.

The following breakpoints are used:

Equal height columns

It doesn't matter which column contains longer content, all columns will be the height of the tallest column.

100% valid HTML and CSS

There are no buggy tricks or hacks to make this layout work, it's based on flexbox CSS.

Semantic HTML5 tags

No div-soup here, this layout uses the correct HTML5 tags for the structural elements of the page.

Here's the HTML:

<header data-r-c data-join data-middle class="header">
        <figure data-md1-5>
            <a href="#">
                <!-- place your logo here -->
            </a>
        </figure>
        <ul data-md4-5 md-text-right class="menu-links">
            <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Products</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Services</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
        </ul>
    </header>
    <r-c join>
        <main data-md2-3 class="main-content">
            <h1>Main Content</h1>
            <p>Your main page content goes here.</p>
        </main>
        <aside data-md1-3 data-md1 class="left-sidebar">
            <h2>Left Sidebar</h2>
            <p>You can put side navigation here or aside content.</p>
        </aside>
    </r-c>
    <footer data-r-c data-join class="footer">
        <c1-1>
            <ul class="menu-links">
                <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
                <li><a href="#">Privacy</a></li>
            </ul>
            <p><small>Made with <a href="https://matthewjamestaylor.com/responsive-columns" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Responsive Columns</a>.</small></p>
        </c1-1>
    </footer>

Column source ordering (for better accessibility and SEO)

The higher up content appears in your page source code, the more accessible it is and it can be considered more important by search engine algorithms. To make your website as optimized as possible, your main content HTML should come before any side column HTML.

This layout uses a 2-1-3 column source order to put the main content before the side columns.

Fully customizable

Easily modify any aspect of this layout to suit your specific requirements. See the Responsive Columns documentation for instructions.

Full browser support

This layout will work on all modern browsers plus any old browsers that support Flexbox:

• Google Chrome 29+
• Mozilla Firefox 28+
• Microsoft Edge 12+
• Apple Safari 9+
• Opera 17+
• Android Browser 4.4+
• Opera Mobile 12.1+
• Chrome for Android
• Firefox for Android
• Opera Mini

Free for anyone to use

Simply download the demo files and you're good to go.

Compatible addons

This layout is fully compatible with the following:

• CSS centered menus
• Responsive banner ads