
The problem with responsive web design: a circus act

Typography & Graphic Design Blog
“The graphic design process—the search for visual concepts—has been compared to the running of a maze. In both cases the solution remains mysterious until the end of the exercise. From an established starting position, the designer works out a logical plan and follows it only to be turned back by the constraints encountered along the way. As in a maze, the designer continues the exploration through further applications of logic, some intuitive guesswork, and a certain amount of trial and error until the problem is solved.”… [Read More]—Allen Hurlburt, The Design Concept
“Throughout this century, there has been first a gradual and then an accelerated movement of communication patterns until today the public is virtually bombarded by printed and projected images until most of them become blurred andmeaningless. This burden of visual ideas places new demands on the designer for more knowledge and for a greater involvement in the planning and problem-solving aspects of communication. Whether he likes it or not, the contemporary art director must be at ease with editorial thinking, advertising objectives, market strategy, human response, and social responsibility—if his layouts are to move from the egocentric boundaries of the drawing board to the excitement of the printed page.”-Allen Hurlburt, Layout: The Design of the Printed Page
Legibility is another area where the designer can be misled by what seems like an obvious dictate in type selection and design. There can be no question about the readability of the message, but legibilty and readability are not quite the same — a dull and uninteresting presentation in a highly legible typeface will not be widely read. There have been many studies of comparative legibility, and each study seems to surface with slightly different conclusions. For the designer, the best solution is to use his material in such a way that it arouses interest and invites reading.—Allen Hurlburt, Layout: The Design of the Printed Page