Although the content is not necessarily bound by a page size, the DISPLAY is – and that is the key to good website design.

I disagree. The ‘canvas’ isn’t the display at all, the canvas is the browser window- the user can of course resize this to any dimension they choose. The canvas is also different on different media types, from PDA’s and mobile phones to Screenreaders.

I’m not too sure about your cinematic comment there.

Your second comment:

You could of course use Phi to divide the page, but for this example I chose not to. This article is very much a second part to the first )if you’ve read that) and shouldn’t necessarily be seen as a single article.

The standardization of A4, I dont think, is related to the Golden Section, but (like you say) to square root of 2.

Let me just say that this article isn’t supposed to be a definitive guide on how to create a grid for A4. It’s just a quick (simple steps) post to explain some of the theory which goes into grid system design.

The red rectangles do not have the same proportions as each single page. They are narrower.

The imaginary rectangle enclosing both red rectangles and their inner gutters(across the 2-page spread) has the same proportions as the entire 2-page spread.

It is interesting to me that your use of phi only starts within these (somewhat arbitrary) red rectangles. So on a solidly filled page of text and graphics, the major design proportion is still your arbitrary selection of of that red rectangle out of many possibilities.

Why not use phi to divide the page or the spread initially into active and marginal areas?

Isn’t the standardization on A4 page sizes supposed to allow relation of the entire grid to the golden section, or to the family of square-root-of-2 rectangles?