I started my career in print. I remember specifying designs in fractional inches and points, and expecting the printed piece to match the comp exactly. When I moved to the web in the late ’90s, I brought that same expectation with me because that’s how we worked back then. Our Photoshop files were precise. But if we’re being honest—that the web is an interactive, quickly malleable medium—that expectation is misplaced. I’ve long since changed my mind, of course.
Web developer Amit Sheen, writing for Smashing Magazine, articulates the problem with “pixel perfect” better than I’ve seen anyone do it:
When a designer asks for a “pixel-perfect” implementation, what are they actually asking for? Is it the colors, the spacing, the typography, the borders, the alignment, the shadows, the interactions? Take a moment to think about it. If your answer is “everything”, then you’ve just identified the core issue… When we say “make it pixel perfect,” we aren’t giving a directive; we’re expressing a feeling.
According to Sheen, “pixel perfect” sounds like a specification but functions as a vibe. It tells the developer nothing actionable.
He traces the problem back to print’s influence on early web design:
In the print industry, perfection was absolute. Once a design was sent to the press, every dot of ink had a fixed, unchangeable position on a physical page. When designers transitioned to the early web, they brought this “printed page” mentality with them. The goal was simple: The website must be an exact, pixel-for-pixel replica of the static mockup created in design applications like Photoshop and QuarkXPress.
Sheen doesn’t just tear down the old model. He offers replacement language. Instead of demanding “pixel perfect,” teams should ask for things like “visually consistent with the design system” or “preserves proportions and alignment logic.” These phrases describe actual requirements rather than feelings.
Sheen again, addressing designers directly:
When you hand over a design, don’t give us a fixed width, but a set of rules. Tell us what should stretch, what should stay fixed, and what should happen when the content inevitably overflows. Your “perfection” lies in the logic you define, not the pixels you draw.
I’m certain advanced designers and design teams know all of the above already. I just appreciated Sheen’s historical take. A Figma file is a hypothesis, a picture of what to build. The browser is the truth.
