Last February I lead a panel titled “Building The Bridge From Print To Digital Through Design” at Graphics of The Americas 2013. The panelists were (with their titles at the time): Jorge Suria President, Hooah Interactive Communications, Penny Stamp Design Manager, Element LLC/Freelance Designer, and Chad Chelius Instructor, Author, Consultant at American Graphics Institute. It didn’t take long before my questions moved to responsive design even though it was a relatively new thing. I believe CNN (or another news outlet) had just launched their responsive site, so there was some buzz out there in the design world about the concept.
After some back and forth hearing what the panel had to say, I asked … “Will programming become the new design?” and to my HORROR, they all said YES.
It’s a year later and Graphics of The Americas 2014 is currently underway in Miami. Responsive design has taken it’s place in the world, and like any new thing people will leap without looking. There is no question that we are moving away from desktops and laptops to smaller and more portable devices, but we in the VISUAL graphic arts industry should keep in mind that design needs to matter to us… or it should!
100% you should have some form of mobile optimized landing page or unique mobile site with some basic information about your company – but please look before your leap into this responsive craze because it’s not fit for every instance. Especially since the web version looks and acts crazy and is kind of annoying with everything moving in chunks, or moving here but not there, and just weird to navigate with a TON of information visible.
The biggest thing to consider before you consider responsive design: How do the majority of your customers access your site? Your analytics should be able to give you a good idea on that answer as well as the pages most viewed. That should help you figure out your best options for the mobile device users, and future ones!
