Isolation by space or by container
The choice between separating two things with room around them or with a line drawn around one of them, which is the most common fork in a layout and the one most often taken by reflex.
Near it
White space
Grid
AlignmentWhat it is made of
| by space | the window is asked how wide it is, and everything on the page answers together | our site does this twice, at the two max-width breakpoints in ink.css |
| by container | the element is asked how wide IT is, and answers alone | our site does this once, on .card |
| measured on our own site | two to one in favour of asking the window | measured on ink.css, which is the whole of this site's CSS: one stylesheet, 95 rules, 2 media queries. The count is the point: a house can hold an opinion about which is better and still have shipped almost none of it, and saying which way round we are is cheaper than arguing it |