Most of the business world uses standard A4 (letter size) paper. It always comes 8.5"x11" (210mm x 279.4mm) since it is an established standard.
It would be silly for A4 paper to come in random sizes larger than 8.5"x11" each time you ordered it. Some days it might be 8.5"x11" and other days it might be 9"x12". Since it must be 8.5x11 to work with scanners and other equipment, you would have to crop sizes larger back down to 8.5"x11" and then you could use it.
This would be ridiculous. However, aren't our websites the same way?
It seems 98% of all web themes use three basic sections to order content. Each has a header (top), content area (middle), and footer (bottom).The look and sub elements of these three sections varies drastically - but the fact that they are there wrapping those elements doesn't.
In an attempt to standardize this format (if for no-one else by myself) I have created this file. At the core of all my themes are these three basic sections. By adopting this file as the base for all my themes I will be able to standardize my HTML so that I can concentrate more on CSS styling.
Think of it like a less restrictive csszengarden.com
I dare you to find a theme that this file isn't built for. Every site out there is page based, full-width, or the background is full-width while the content is page-based.
Totally free and released under the MIT license. Enjoy.
David Pennington http://code2design.com