This is not normal. Artists can and do work in a fixed size sprite sheet for so many reasons.

Disappointed that this is not about https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8bQ2yxyotw

Reads like something that came out of an LLM.

I honestly don't get why someone would write a blog post for such a simple problem. It's fizzbuzz level. I thought the author might be an artist who knows very little about programming and is just learning, but according the about page they have PhD and has published 20 programming books...?