According to the present invention a method for the placement of electronic circuit components is provided that supports design modifications by realizing and maintaining relations between the layouts of the components (i1 to i6). These relations are based on relations between the geometrical shapes represented by the layouts for the components. The invention can be implemented by an interactive layout editor.When a layout or the placement of a layout is changed manually, then the placement of the components that are placed already is changed automatically such that the all the relations between the components are realized or maintained. A parent-child relationship can be defined between components such that when the parent component is changed or moved then only the placement of its children is updated automatically. The prioritisation of relations allows resolving conflicts between conflicting relations.