its go time

Time is short to get my stuff together and create my personal brand. The stage I'm in right now, I'm referring to as "The Development Stage." As cliché as that can possibly sound I really mean development.

Something I am trying to do with my work is really try and separate myself from my classmates, friends, and other designers. This also means I need to be on par with technologies and techniques that they all use. One of the most prominent ways I will do this is by creating a responsive portfolio.

Responsive sites need to be able to adapt to its media size, hence the word "responsive"

I always knew there would be websites and apps that change depending on their screen and I had even designed some of them in the past for fun. This summer, however, I learned a lot about the process that goes into making one. While I interned at Digital Surgeons in New Haven, CT this summer I got a crash course on what responsive design encompasses. It's not just about the screen adjustments but about all the different things you have to consider ahead of time to make a responsive product function.

A fantastic example of a responsive site is the 2012 Build Conference website. Build is a conference in the UK that is all about design for the web.

The 2012 Build site at full size

As you change your screen size, the site will change with you.

The 2012 Build site at tablet size

Every site is built to match certain size standards and are built with a grid system. Just like typography, grids are an incredibly important tool for web designers. These are most of the time fluid-based grids, meaning they are using percentages instead of pixels to define sizes.

Why I want to use one is because, well, they're AWESOME. I personally love using as technical a tool as I can get my hands on, and why not challenge myself with a system I've never used. The only way to grow is to challenge yourself so why not challenge myself on probably the most important project I'll even complete for myself. There's no fun in mediocrity, so it's time to kick my own ass and write a ton of css, html, javascript, jquery, and ruby so I can get this done. Maybe this will be the month I actually start to drink coffee...who knows?