Full Bleed

We’ve covered techniques before for when you want a full-width element within a constrained-width column, like an edge-to-edge image within a narrower column of text. There are loads of techniques.

Perhaps my favorite is this little utility class:

.full-width {
  width: 100vw;
  position: relative;
  left: 50%;
  right: 50%;
  margin-left: -50vw;
  margin-right: -50vw;
}

That works as long as the column is centered and you don’t mind having to hide overflow-x on the column (or the body) as this can trigger horizontal overflow otherwise.

There was a little back and forth on some other ideas lately…

Josh Comeau blogged that you could set up a three-column grid, and mostly place content in the middle column, but then have the opportunity to bust out of it:

.wrapper {
  display: grid;
  grid-template-columns:
    1fr
    min(65ch, 100%)
    1fr;
}
.wrapper > * {
  grid-column: 2;
}
.full-bleed {
  width: 100%;
  grid-column: 1 / -1;
}

I think this is clever. I’d probably use it. But I admit there are bits that feel weird to me. For instance…

• Now everything within the container is a grid element. Not a huge deal, but the elements will behave slightly differently. No margin collapsing, for one.
• You have to apply the default behavior you want to every single element. Rather than elements naturally stacking on top of each other, you have to select them and tell them where to go and let them stack themselves. Feels a little less like just going with the web’s grain. Then you still need a utility class to do the full bleed behavior.

What I really like about the idea is that it gives you this literal grid to work with. For example, your left spacer could be half the width of the right and that’s totally fine. It’s setting up that space to be potentially used, like Ethan talked about in his article on constrained grids.

Kilian Valkhof responded to the article with this idea:

body > *:not(img):not(video) { 
  position: relative;
  max-width: 40rem;
  margin: auto;
}

Also very clever. This constrains the width of everything (in whatever container, and it wouldn’t have to be the body) except the elements you want to bust out (which could be a utility class there too, and not necessarily images and videos).

Again, to me, this feeling that I have to select every single element and provide it this fundamental information about layout feels slightly weird. Not like “don’t use it” weird, just not something I’m used to doing. Historically, I’m more comfortable sizing and positioning a container and letting the content in that container lay itself out without much further instruction.

You know what I like the most? That we have so many powerful layout tools in CSS and we have conversations about the pros and cons of pulling off exactly what we’re going for.

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