- Venugopal Nair
- August 24, 2021
- Musings
Start with a book. The cover page and the content pages are different designs. But the chapters are all the same size text and the margins stay constant.
Nothing changes and to increase type size, you would have to use a magnifying glass.
eBooks allow you to change the font, increase the space between lines or the size of the fonts themselves. That’s one example of fluidity.
Designers are unhappy about the loss of control. The elements can rearrange themselves. Like when you change the phone orientation from portrait to landscape. The paragraphs get wider and the pictures bigger.
Email design has some flexibility but the text and images occupy different containers. But email programs are fussy about displaying images.
Smartphones were disruptors. They destroyed the easy swap between screens and forced design choices on programmers. There were 4 inch, 5 inch, 6 inch and 7 inch screens to deal with.
Early on, apps and responsive web pages became the norm. But there were several designs that did not migrate. Brochures squeezed into mobile screens were terrible. So were magazines. Anything that looked gorgeous in print was stuck.
PDFs were the compromise. Design bonsais for mobiles. Readable type on laptops looked like medicine labels on smartphones. And that’s where we continue to be.
Sending out emails with PDF attachments in the fond hope that people will download them. And pinch, squeeze and scroll through the miniature typography.
It’s not going to happen. There is a better way. Allow us to show you how it can be done.