Futurico UI Pro

Responsive Web Design: 50 Examples and Best Practices

Posted by: Adrian, In: Design, Inspiration, On: October 11, 2011 | 46 Comments

Responsive web design term is related to the concept of developing a website design in a manner, that helps the lay out to get changed according to the user’s computer screen resolution. More precisely, the concept allows for an advanced 4 column layout 1292 pixels wide, on a 1025 pixel  width screen, that auto-simplifies into 2 columns. Also it suitably fixes on the smartphone and computer tablet screen. This particular designing technique we call “responsive web design”.

Responsive web designing is a completely different designing version than the traditional web designing, and developers (especially fresher) must know about the pros and cons of responsive web designing. This blog is a mighty example of the approach so we will reveal a few facts about the uses of responsive web designing. The basic instinct might be to choose media queries to develop a responsive site. However, the hassle you face with media queries is that new queries can pop up from moment to moment; each time the user experiences sudden and drastic changes to the look and organization of the site. Experts suggest using some CSS transitions to ease the jump.

Pages that include data tables pose a special challenge to the responsive web designer. Data tables are very wide by default and when you zoom out to see the whole table it becomes too small to read. When you try to zoom in to make the it readable, you are supposed to scroll both horizontally and vertically to look through it.  Well, there are several ways avoid this problem. Reformatting the data table as a pie or mini-graph is an approved solution. The mini-graph fixes even in narrow screens.

Images in responsive web designs are called context-aware. Responsive web design images are primarily fluid images that can be replaced by context aware images, an updated version for better designing. This particular technique serves the purpose of responsive designing in true sense as the images serve at different resolutions, ranging from larger screens to smaller ones. The scaled images appear to change fluidly with the help of updated developer tools and coding languages, allowing designs to look sharp in every context. Responsive web designing is remarkably different from traditional designing in terms of technical and creative issues and a careful use of this can do wonder while designing.

Responsive Web Design Examples

Simon Collison

Andersson-Wise Architects

Stephen Caver

Sparkbox

Food Sense

The Boston Globe

Think Vitamin

Sasquatch! Music Festival

Internet Images

Staffanstorp

Seminal Responsive Web Design Example

Naomi Atkinson

Forefathers Group

Spigot Design

New Adventures In Web Design Conference 2012

Illy Issimo

Arrrrcamp Conference

Robot or Not?

Earth Hour

Clean Air Commute Challenge

Launch Kit

Teixidó

Ribot

Deren Keskin

Sweet Hat Club

Glitch

dConstruct 2011

Adaptive Web Design

Authentic Jobs

Five Simple Steps

Splendid

Ryan O’Rourke

FlexSlider

El Sendero del Cacao

Do Lectures

St Paul’s School

Naomi Atkinson Design

Ben Handzo Photography

Stunning CSS3 Media Queries Example

Nordic Ruby Conference

Halifax Game Jam

Diablo Media

ASU Online

3200 Tigres

Pixelab

Kings Hill Cars

8 Faces

Asbury Agile

Alsacréations

Sleepstreet

Inspired: Media Queries

We believe we are an exceptional team that works hard to do things the right way. We help designers and developers to find the good inspiration before create their works. If you would like to be kept up to date with our posts, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, or even by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

46 Responses to "Responsive Web Design: 50 Examples and Best Practices"
  1. PXLated
    October 12, 2011 at 3:41 am

    Seems to be a very predictable rearrangement pattern to most of them.

  2. Susan
    October 12, 2011 at 9:50 am

    Very nice! Beautiful site designs as well. :)

  3. aledesign.it
    October 12, 2011 at 11:56 am

    A great example by design responsive. So useful when I see some site in my
    smartphone..Is the time for these sites, now.

  4. Designrshub
    October 12, 2011 at 2:10 pm

    I like those thumbnails :) Its really awesome to see a uniformed images.

  5. Wing
    October 13, 2011 at 12:07 am

    Surprised to see http://webdesignerwall.com is not on the list.

  6. Dzinepress
    October 13, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    excellent examples for design inspirations. thanks

  7. Michael Hobson
    October 13, 2011 at 7:09 pm

    Add mine to the list! http://www.movembermike.com

    I redesigned it last weekend using the getskeleton boilerplate

  8. Jeremy Linskill
    October 19, 2011 at 4:18 am

    Great article and examples. I think something else that should be mentioned is that in the field of web design and development, we are at a point where it is impractical – financially and otherwise – for any business to attempt to keep up with the seemingly endless amount of new devices coming to market. Understanding and being able to apply responsive design is key to operating in this reality.

  9. Sagar Ranpise
    November 3, 2011 at 12:49 pm

    Hi Adrian,

    Very nice post on responsive design. I have also created a post on creating responsive html5 page using media queries. I hope you like mine too.

    http://www.alldesignstuffs.com/2011/creating-responsive-html5-page-using-media-queries/

    Thanks & Regards,
    Sagar S. Ranpise

  10. contact@afi-aveyron.fr
    November 8, 2011 at 12:11 am

    Very beautiful theme. The work of the fonts is in the spotlight.

  11. Terry
    November 8, 2011 at 7:11 pm

    This is a great list, I especially liked ASU’s site. I read a good article about workflows that might be helpful to others interested in responsive design.

  12. bisnisukm
    November 14, 2011 at 5:22 am

    awesome.
    nice collection.

  13. Michael Byers
    November 22, 2011 at 2:42 pm

    Really good examples. I am trying hard to make sure my future designs are responsive.

  14. KBG
    November 28, 2011 at 11:55 am

    This is a great list,
    take a look at http://www.alicelists.com. the way I am implementing ‘responsive design’ ( it is currently only working in latest firefox, safari, chrome and opera, and it does not work on IE. I am still working on it…), if you are interested in my project. drop me a message…kbg@alicelists.com :-)
    1. it changes based on the browser’s width ..
    2. the ‘skin’ can be changed based on the width and height , but i finally decide let the viewer selects the skin’s color….

  15. Tammy Cornett
    December 2, 2011 at 12:12 am

    After a complete redesign and new content creation in August, this week our site (it.eku.edu) is now responsive. Our goal with the redesign was to be clear, concise, consistent and keep our content correct. The goal with the RWD is for our users (students, faculty, staff) to be able to find the IT support they need on any device.

  16. Nick M
    December 9, 2011 at 4:19 am

    This was a very interesting article, I liked the many examples.

  17. Boris Kotevski
    December 12, 2011 at 3:11 pm

    Considering the above example can be a great step in the right direction toward a good website design.

  18. xevica
    December 19, 2011 at 11:01 pm

    Very useful article! I think that the responsive design trend is definitely bringing a lot of players on the table. We also have a nice demo that is not listed in your list: http://www.xevica.com/responsive-design-demo/demo.html

  19. Eric Snowden
    December 20, 2011 at 2:05 am

    I just redesigned my site using Foundation. Would love to be added to the list – http://www.ericpaulsnowden.com

  20. Greg
    December 20, 2011 at 10:43 pm

    Some great examples here. Also thinking of developing a responsive layout for my site next year.

    For anyone interested I’ve started writing a series of articles on responsive design here:

    http://www.phoenixstudios.co.uk/blog/2011/03/02/responsive-web-design-an-introduction/

  21. Tim Conrad
    December 22, 2011 at 8:37 am

    Take a look at http://www.aquatera.ca. Just finished new site design as well as responsive design. Now to make those features grow!

  22. Sohel
    January 10, 2012 at 10:00 pm

    Hey its very nice to learn and very interesting.

  23. Joseph Buarao
    January 18, 2012 at 1:55 pm

    Great collection mate! :) thanks for sharing this mate

  24. Paul Eustice
    January 18, 2012 at 8:35 pm

    Some nice examples here. I recently launched my site (I actually started playing with it in December 2010 but I got lazy) which uses a responsive layout with column-count, which I haven’t seen used on any other sites.

    It’s also fluid between breakpoints, which is something I think many people miss out, to ill effect. What point is a responsive site that isn’t fluid between your set resolutions?

    Take a look :)

    http://pauleustice.com

  25. Sahil
    January 19, 2012 at 1:30 pm

    thanks, great collection of these responsive designed sites, this is really a good reference.

  26. Joe Twumasi
    January 20, 2012 at 2:31 am

    Nice list on responsive web design and looking forward in getting my new website to this technique in making it easier on different screen resolution.

  27. Martin
    January 28, 2012 at 3:47 am

    Im currently working on redesign project: You can take a look: http://www.aktivtek.no/hjemmeside-design.html I just hope to find some inspiration soon. I have been trying to figure something out but it take some time. BTW Arrrrcamp Conference is really cool.

  28. Scott Levy
    January 30, 2012 at 4:58 am

    Great post. Here’s a handy list of free web design tools to create polished website styles and web app designs
    http://blog.caspio.com/web_apps/free-web-design-tools-to-style-your-website/

  29. TJ
    February 3, 2012 at 12:13 am

    This is a great article and some really good examples of responsive design.

    I think we’re really going to start to see a shift from traditional design to responsive design. It makes the most sense for client who are looking to design their website and applying similar themes to a mobile or tablet device without having to create a native app.

    If you’re looking for more inspiration on responsive design, check out this gallery @ http://www.gottaloveresponsivedesign.com.

    - TJ

  30. Theme Weekly
    February 4, 2012 at 4:22 pm

    A very good and fresh collection. Good for inspiration. This has also been featured in the very first issue of our Theme Weekly.

  31. Ken
    February 5, 2012 at 1:47 pm

    Great examples of very responsive and fluid design. Really nice for inspiration for any designer willing to level up their skills for flexible work

  32. reidy68
    February 8, 2012 at 8:22 pm

    …great examples! any recommendations on where i could learn this style of web design? ie books or preferably video tuts?

    cheers!

  33. Michael Hobson
    February 10, 2012 at 6:14 pm

    Just redesigned my portfolio site responsively! http://www.tremulantdesign.com

  34. Sheryl
    February 11, 2012 at 2:11 am

    Love these examples. Does anybody have any examples or insight on how to apply responsive design to desksites that currently employ mega-dropdown navigation?

  35. Nicolas ROSSI
    February 16, 2012 at 12:53 pm

    Hello, here is an example of a French site.

  36. Prodyot
    February 18, 2012 at 8:06 pm

    Unquestionably this is an awesome list.
    Each of them is a great treat to my responsive eyes.
    Now, had the title of this collection read “50 Mind Boggling Responsive Templates Free To Download” then maybe I would have jumped in undefined uncontrollable ecstasy and maybe would have collapsed dead with a sudden heart attack :)
    Thanks for saving my life :)
    And, thanks for sharing the list.

  37. Dinesh
    February 20, 2012 at 6:19 pm

    Inspirational … another good example of responsive web design is labnol include it.

  38. Coco
    February 20, 2012 at 9:35 pm

    Thank you for the article with those great examples. There are so many good inspirations …

Leave a Reply


Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.