Card layout

A card layout chops content into repeated rectangles, each one a self-contained unit: image, title, a line of text, maybe a button. Google's Material Design made it the default for feeds and dashboards, Pinterest made it the default for browsing, and it stuck because cards survive reordering, reflow, and infinite scroll without the layout falling apart.

Reach for cards when items are peers, mixed in shape, and meant to be scanned rather than read: products, articles, projects, settings groups. Give every card the same internal rhythm (same image ratio, same title length budget, same button position) or the grid reads as noise. Equal-height cards with the action pinned to the bottom is the look people mean when they say 'make these line up'.

Gotcha: card soup. When everything on the page is boxed, nothing is emphasized, and you've spent a shadow and a border on each item to communicate zero hierarchy. Sequential content (a how-to, an article) usually wants a plain list, not tiles. The other trap is clickability: if the whole card is a link, do not bury more links inside it, or you get nested anchors that break keyboard navigation and screen readers.