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Category Archive: Web Design

What’s So Cool About Responsive Design?

Posted by    |   October 17th, 2013   |   No responses

responsive-design-website-liquormartAt Insight, we’re all about flexibility. Whether it’s practicing yoga at lunch or taking a day off from business to ride the Courage Classic, we believe that life is more enjoyable when you allow yourself to stretch to fit in the things that you think are important. And we take that same approach to web design, where we’ve been incorporating responsive design to keep sites looking snazzy as well as flexible. We ask a lot of websites nowadays. We want them to look good on a 60” TV monitor as well as a smartphone. But we all know that these displays are sized at opposite ends of the spectrum, and we interact with them differently. Responsive design is here to fix that. But first, a short flashback. When phones that could access and display the internet first came along, they brought with them a range of problems for people with websites. You probably still notice when you go to a site that isn’t mobile friendly. Your phone only provides a small window into the site, you have to scroll all the way to the right and to the left, up and down, to view an entire page, and you’re constantly zooming in and out to read content and click on links. It ain’t pretty, and it ain’t fun. The original solution to these problems was to create a mobile site, essentially a separate website at a separate URL, that could only be accessed by mobile devices. For a while, this was a great option for people who knew that a fair amount of their traffic would come from cell phones. But then new phones with new screen sizes came along. And then tablets with a wide range of screen sizes were put on the market. And after a while, it got hard to keep up with all the different ways that someone could access your website. And then responsive design was invented. Based on a fluid grid system, which restacks elements depending on the width of the screen it’s viewed on, responsive design allows a website to gracefully rearrange itself depending on the device its audience is using. So a bold, broad menu on a work desktop becomes a compact dropdown on a phone. A product list, which would normally have 4 products in each row, rearranges so that three show up on your iPad, two on your phone when it’s held in landscape mode, and just one when you hold your phone upright. In other words, your website becomes flexible. Like, doing the splits flexible. We’ve been using responsive design quite a bit recently (see Given Goods, ThirtySevenFive, and LiquorMart for some of our favorites), and it’s caused us to rethink our designs. We’re pretty excited with the results. Check out some of our recent responsive site launches and drag the browser window to larger and smaller sizes to see how flexible the web can be.
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Happy 14 Insight Designs!

Posted by    |   March 5th, 2013   |   No responses

14Fourteen. Not much interesting about that number - except that Insight Designs is celebrating our 14th birthday this month. That's right. Way back in March 1999, we started making custom websites and web applications. The industry has changed a lot since then. Can you say mobile? Can you say native app? Can you say WordPress, Magento, Drupal, plugin, extension? But we still love what we do: Helping clients find the most effective ways to communicate with their customers, members, investors and donors. Creating intuitive, easy-to-use applications and interfaces. Building relationships. And making a positive difference in our community and our world. Thanks to all of you who've helped us along the way! Here's hoping we have many more years together on this wonderful adventure.
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“A Place at the Table” opens in theaters nationwide today

Posted by    |   March 1st, 2013   |   No responses

A Place At The Tableplaceattable, an award-winning documentary film created by Insight Designs client Catalyst Films, opens in theaters across the US today, including Denver's Landmark Mayan at 110 Broadway. It's also available on iTunes and On Demand. Don't miss it! The feature-length film examines the shocking paradox of hunger in the wealthiest nation on earth. Despite our country having the means to provide affordable, nutritious food for all Americans, one in four children, or 50 million Americans, don't know where their next meal is coming from, and often when that meal does come, it's filled with empty calories. Directors Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush take a look at the issue through the stories of three Americans who face food insecurity daily. NY Daily News says it's "as important and eye-opening a documentary as you'll see this year." And LA Times called it "the essential documentary." Kudos to Kristi and her team for an amazing job. Learn more about the film at catalyst-films.com. Find ways to take action to end hunger in America at takepart.com. And if you didn't already see Kristi and Lori interviewed on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, check it out now. Their interview starts at the 13-minute mark.
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A Grammy Nominee in our midst

Posted by    |   December 27th, 2012   |   No responses

So excited to share the news that one of Insight Designs' clients - JumpinJazz Kids - has been nominated for a Grammy! JumpinJazz Kids is a unique line of children's music that combines narrative storytelling with fun, pop-influenced jazz songs performed by world-renowned jazz artists, a jazz quintet and a full symphony orchestra. The stories follow the imaginative adventures of 7-year-old Claire and her stuffed animal friends. "A Swinging Jungle Tale," the first title in the JumpinJazz series, has been selected as one of 5 nominees -- out of 117 entrants -- in the Best Children's Album Category for the 55th Annual Grammy Awards. Keep your eye on CBS at 8 pm on Sunday, Feb. 10, to see if our friends take home the coveted statue. And in the meantime, feel free to check out the JumpinJazz Kids website, where you can learn more about Claire, listen to the music featuring Dee Dee Bridgewater, Al Jarreau and Hubert Laws, and of course buy a CD.
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ThisLife.com wins Award!

Posted by    |   September 26th, 2012   |   No responses

Kudos to our friends at ThisLife.com for being a Silver Winner in the 7th Annual W3 Awards. The awards, judged and sanctioned by the International Academy of the Visual Arts, honor outstanding work for web and mobile. Insight Designs started working with ThisLife founders Matt and Andrea Johnson in February 2010 to create their cloud-based service that organizes and archives users' photos and videos. Insight partner Nico Toutenhoofd led a crew of Insight programmers to develop ThisLife's API cloud infrastructure, including everything from video processing and face recognition to social media integration and automatic duplicate photo detection. The API supports an HTML5 browser client, a Flash browser client, a native iPhone app, a Mac desktop app and a Windows desktop app. If you're looking for the best home for all of your photos and videos, ThisLife is it.  It's currently in beta and is an invitation-only service, but you can simply request an invite to see what all the buzz is about. Also, check out this glowing piece from the Wall Street Journal - "A Hangout for All Your Social-Network Photos".
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