A mobile first approach to design – Use text instead of images

Many moons ago I linked to the Rainfall Daffinson website as an example of confident, simple design. At lunch today I was thumbing through my blog and thought I’d see if anything had changed. It has.

I still really like the site. What struck me this time is the use of paragraphs on the portfolio page. 99% of portfolios use a thumbnail or (shudder) a jquery slider to present work. Probably because people think ‘proper’ web design involves making things move around.

But why not use text? Each portfolio entry has a distinct presence on the page. It looks neat, and we can still go and look at the work. Effortlessly individual.

It’s also inherently mobile friendly. The HTML weighs in at a super light 2.2Kb. It’s just a shame the layout doesn’t adapt to the viewport. *[HTML]: HyperText Markup Language