Responsive Design: the user is king

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Alessandro Bonora

Recently we at bigFIG have begun exploring responsive design techniques as a solution to the constant evolution of viewing mediums for our websites and apps. When we started building interactive magazines four years ago this concept really didn’t exist, and as the tablet space and HTML5 have matured, we’ve watched closely as this philosophy and technique has started to gain a lot of momentum.

WHAT IS RESPONSIVE DESIGN?
So, what is responsive design? It most commonly refers to an approach coined by Ethan Marcotte that is used in web design as a technique to make a website adapt its layout to whatever device it is being viewed on. So if you are viewing a website on a desktop or mobile device, the content will reformat itself to be most optimally viewed on that device. Take a look at this website www.dolectures.com. If you play with the width of your browser (assuming you’re reading this on a computer) you’ll notice how the site reformats itself, changing style and dispensing with certain elements to allow for optimal reading at cretins sizes. Also notice how it doesn’t slavishly repeat one layout and it is in fact hard to know what the principle layout is. Whether you read this on a mobile phone, a tablet or desktop computer, your reading experience will be optimized for that medium.

A comparison of how the site www.dolectures.com responds to different display sizes

So Responsive Design is really a rather simple idea: rather than creating completely separate designs for each medium you want your product to be viewed on, you design it once but in such a way that the content adjusts to fit different devices. There are many hurdles and technicalities involved so it is important to identify what the final goal is and what is ultimately possible given the project scope, time and budget.

It's important to define what qualities the final outcome should have, and then assess what is workable given the timeline

For people from a print background this concept undermines some pretty well entrenched views on layout and design. Typography nuts and image purists might hate the idea that they might lost the minute control they have traditional had over how their content renders. They will in all likelihood feel a gut-wrenching sense of loss at the thought that their carefully crafted type might be able to change size, position and structure accruing to a user’s input and preferences.

ADJUSTING FOR SCREEN SIZE & RESOLUTION
Now, you could of course stick to your guns and try create different layouts for every device out there, but with the increasing number of devices out there this could quickly become unwieldy. Here are just a few of the sizes you’d need to consider in order to do this:

• 1280px
• 10240px
• 960px
• 768px
• 600px
• 480px
• 320px

I’m a typography nut but my view on all of this has shifted dramatically over the course of the last four years. From being a typography and layout pedant I have come to realize that we need to shift the focus from us, the designers, towards the consumers of our media and understand that the most comfortable way for them to view it is ultimately the best way. It is quite clear that not every person has the same preferences for reading and viewing, and we ultimately need to hand over the tools to them to cater their viewing experience to their needs.

The key for us as designers is to focus more on the fundamentals of our work: the hierarchy of elements, their primary function, making the navigation and access to information as easy and intuitive as possible for the reader. And we need to move away from concerning ourselves with style and ornament over communication. We need to become the guides for our readers rather than the star attractions. Some might not like this but I for one love this, it takes us back the core principles of our craft, the essentials of readability, legibility and moves us away from overzealous use of Zapfino, watermark backgrounds and glossy fly-out ornamental petals. Ultimately our readers are concerned with content, and content remains king.

We’ll be exploring these techniques over the coming weeks and months and will be posting updates and developments here.

Interesting sites employing responsive web design:

http://www.dolectures.com/

Extra reading on responsive web design:
• http://rogerblack.com/blog/post/sites_and_apps_chutes_and_ladders
• http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dao/
• http://www.alistapart.com/articles/responsive-web-design/

 

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Talking digital magazines with University of Oregon students

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Alessandro Bonora

Yesterday evening I had the wonderful opportunity of speaking to a group of seniors at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication about the work bigFIG has done for Safari interactive magazine

The students are part of a class taught by Ed Madison and I  am still quite amazed that they were able to track down our small studio on the southern tip of the Africa, and that we were able to have an engaging Questions-&-Answers session via Skype across a nine-hour time difference – I sitting in Cape Town at 6 o’clock in the evening and the students in their classroom in Oregon, at 9 o’clock in the morning, Pacific Time. What a wonderful privilege and experience it was.

I was very impressed with the real world focus of the students’ questions. A number of their questions focused on how we at bigFIG approach workflow considerations and the very practical side of how editorial, design and development interact on a day-to-day basis. It’s an important consideration for up-and-coming journalists and certainly an issue the publishing industry has to grapple with.

Another very pertinent question concerned how we market our apps and what strategies we employ for turning them into revenue. Our view on this is that marketing plays an absolutely fundamental role and I think my answer to the students was a play on a famous line from the film ‘The Field of Dreams’ :  “Just because you’ve built it does not mean they will come.” You have to get the word out there, get reviews, use social media aggressively, offer free options online and be creative about seeking out revenue opportunities.

Other questions focussed on advertising and the increasing cross-over between editorial and paid-for-content, how we deal with the limitations of our design tools, and the techniques we employ to keep the Safari interactive magazine iPad app file size so low.

The final question for the session was what advice I would give recent graduates starting out their careers in digital media. My answer: firstly, be agile and don’t fall too in love with your design tools as they may change quite suddenly; and secondly, focus on keeping things simple and uncomplicated – the first principles of design always hold sway regardless of the technology out there.

I was also quite astonished to hear that the same group had chatted to Dr Mario Garcio the day before. Dr Garcia has been a hero of mine for a number of years for his work on newspaper and magazine design. Click here to read his view on the Skype chat he had with the students.

The 25 minute discussion was a thoroughly enjoyable experience and I look forward to seeing and hearing more from the class. Impressively enough, the students at the University of Oregon have already produced their own digital magazine, OR Magazine. Click here to view their app on the iTunes app store.

View the Safari interactive magazine showcase video below and click here to view the app on iTunes:

And here’s a video that chronicles the work the students did on OR Magazine:

 

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WELCOME TO OUR WORLD!

Posted on September 29, 2011 by paul

Welcome to the first of a bi-weekly (that means once every two weeks) series of blog posts, aimed at those with a vested interest in Safari interactive magazine and anyone else in the industry who’d like to know more about what we do.

Why take the time to write these posts? Well…

In the world of digital media, things change so quickly that sometimes even I can’t keep up. Like a cheetah chasing its confused and petrified prey, we, the publishers, need to be as supple and movable as possible, changing direction – adapting to our surroundings at every turn.

So the purpose of the posts is simply to keep you in the loop – and, of course, for the sake of complete transparency.

So let’s get started. We have recently had a few exciting developments at Safari that I think you should know about.

Firstly, we have finally cracked the code that allows us to attractively share individual stories in Safari. This means that when you are browsing a story about horse riding in Namibia and you would like your social network to know about it, you can press the share button on the right of the screen and the picture and title of the story will show up on your Facebook news feed for all your horse-loving friends and fans to see. Neat hey?


The potential for viral sharing has just been turned up a notch!

There are very few digital magazines that allow you to properly share stories – mostly because they are hidden away from social networks as downloads and apps. Not Safari – we are looking to have the best of both worlds.

But more about that later.

By the way, have you seen the Safari blog?

Who would have thought that the blog would become such an important foundation to an already vibrant digital magazine? But it has. Not only is it a great place to put back-stories and extra information, but it’s also proving to be an excellent SEO-friendly way to lead traffic to the magazine and keep our community entertained while the next issue is in production.

Africa Geographic director Steve Boyes (one of my distinguished bosses) utilised the blog for his recent expedition across the Okavango Delta, updating a substantial following about his daily tussles with crocs and hippos. Thrilling stuff.

But back to the magazine. Things are going well here in the halls of Safari. Our readership is growing along with our subscriber base as Africa-fanatics and media junkies become more and more aware of this next-level digital product. I recently received an email from a friend who works in the Media24 building in Cape Town informing me that his boss had sent an all@ email raving to his colleagues that Safari (link attached) was the best magazine he has ever seen.

Likewise, Peter Borchert (another distinguished senior) went for a meeting with the CEO of SanParks recently, to show him Safari, only to find out that he knew all about it already.

Even the community in far-away Maun, Botswana were well clued up with the magazine when Steve passed through after his expedition a few months back.

It seems Safari’s reputation is preceding itself, which shows one very important thing: Beyond our marketing efforts, Safari is being shared and is now taking on a distribution life of it’s own. Long live the power of digital.

So congratulations to those who have recognised the potential and are coming along for the ride.

Until next time,

Paul
Safari Editor

 

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bigFIG Treeplanting at Rawsonville, 1 April 2011

Posted on April 11, 2011 by josephine


Click for Photo Gallery

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bigFIG boss reckons “ours is bigger than yours”

Posted on January 12, 2011 by josephine

The bigFIG (digital) and Africa Geographic (print) partnership has thrown down the gauntlet to South Africa’s media and publishing industry: “We will plant more than 2,500 indigenous trees in 2011,” declared bigFIG CEO Simon Espley at a recent tree-planting exercise. “And we will match or better this number in the years going forward.” What is your business doing to mitigate its carbon footprint, was his challenge.

Espley threw down the gauntlet to the South African media industry while the team was digging holes for some 20 trees at the Lady Michaelis Community Health Centre in Plumstead, Cape Town.

“bigFIG has teamed up with the award-winning publisher Africa Geographic to plant more than 2,500 indigenous trees this year. We do this in partnership with communities, NGOs and government departments, thereby ensuring that our trees are suitable for the area, make a meaningful contribution to communities and are well-looked after.”

The small team of 10 editors, designers, tech and marketing personnel visit their projects regularly, to make sure its efforts are not in vain. This is a small part of its sustainability program – for more info visit http://www.bigfig.com/#sustain-sustain2.

“Our most exciting project for 2011 will be planting some 2,000 yellowwood trees in the Amatola mountain area of the Eastern Cape in collaboration with Africa Geographic, Wilderness Safaris, the Wild Bird Trust, the Cape Parrot Project, BirdLife South Africa, Rance Timber and local communities,” he says. There is an urgent need to rehabilitate our last-remaining intact Afromontane forest patches in order to save the fewer than 1,000 critically endangered Cape Parrots remaining in the wild. Aptly named iziKhenene (meaning Cape Parrot in Zulu/Xhosa), this tree planting project will focus mainly on South Africa’s national tree, the Real Yellowwood Podocarpus latifolius.

“We have purchased the entire stock of saplings from two community-run nurseries and local women from the surrounding communities will be paid to plant and care for the saplings. We are also looking to continue this project into the future, thus providing sustainable income for the community.

“In addition to the Amatola project we support the Slanghoek Mountain Resort near Rawsonville with their riverine habitat regeneration project, and get involved twice a year in local ad-hoc projects. In December we planted over 20 trees at the Lady Michaelis Community Health Centre in Plumstead, Cape Town. A glade of hardy indigenous trees now graces the grounds, providing much-needed future shade for the clinic’s patients. Our NGO partner on that day was Greenpop, a non-profit community greening initiative (http://greenpop.org/).

“We invite the media industry to meet or beat our efforts to bring about a truly sustainable publishing and media industry,” Espley concluded.

Click to view the photo gallery of the Lady Michaelis tree-planting exercise

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Wild Horizons

Posted on December 10, 2010 by paul

Paul Steyn, a member of the bigFIG team and editor of Africa Geographic digimag went on a flying safari around Namibia recently. Upon his return he made this video as a teaser for the full digimag feature scheduled for early 2011.

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All in a day’s work

Posted on November 26, 2010 by josephine

BigFIG plants trees to offset its emissions Photo Gallery

Digital media production company bigFIG is offsetting its transport emissions by planting trees to rehabilitate Slanghoek Mountain Resort – a farm near Rawsonville in South Africa that has suffered from severe erosion due to past flooding in the area.

Setting out early on Friday 15 October, the bigFIG team travelled together in a bus to Slanghoek Mountain Resort to spend a day on the farm planting trees, enjoying the area and getting to know how it will benefit from the new vegetation.

The farm, which is part of CapeNature’s Stewardship Programme, has suffered from severe erosion in recent years and the tree planting is part of an effort to restore the riverbanks and support local biodiversity. As they take in CO2 to grow, the trees will also help bigFIG realise its goal of being carbon neutral by offsetting the team’s transport emissions generated by travelling to and from work and meetings.

‘Tree planting is one part of our broader carbon footprint strategy. We do everything possible to reduce our carbon emissions to a minimum, and where this isn’t possible we offset our carbon footprint by planting trees,’ said Simon Espley, CEO at bigFIG.

All the trees planted by bigFIG are indigenous to the area and will help to rehabilitate and reinforce the river’s banks to prevent further erosion in the future and return the area to a more natural state.

BigFIG planted 60 trees that will more than offset the team’s transport emissions for the past three months. This is the first of many tree-planting days that bigFIG will take part in as part of its goal to become carbon-neutral.

Espley says, ‘We look forward to an ongoing involvement with Slanghoek Mountain Resort and returning year after year to track our trees and plant more. It’s great for our staff, great for Slanghoek and great for the planet. This is a very affordable and efficient way to make a real difference. We encourage other businesses to join us at Slanghoek or to find similar projects in their area. We also encourage landowners to contact Slanghoek to learn about the process and to adopt similar strategies.’

About bigFIG

For further information about bigFIG go to www.bigfig.com. We create digital magazines for ourselves and for our corporate clients.

About Slanghoek

To find out about supporting Slanghoek Mountain Resort’s tree-planting initiative, visit www.slanghoekresort.co.za or contact +27 (0)23 344 3138. Also read this for more information on the area’s biodiversity initiatives

About CapeNature

For more on the CapeNature go to www.capenature.co.za.

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