Cutting Edge Mobile Design
The mobile web is officially open to the masses, as evidenced by all the mobile sessions at this year’s South by Southwest Party Conference. Plain old-fashioned WAP design is out. It’s time to step up the game on creating striking, captivating, eye-catching mobile design.
Need inspiration? Here are some mobile design showcases to get you going. These links are all desktop sites with rich graphics, so if you’re reading this on your mobile phone, consider yourself warned about huge graphic download sizes if you don’t have an unlimited data plan:
Mobile Design Showcase Sites That Rock
- MobileAwesomeness.com The name says it all, doesn’t it?
- SmashingMagazine.com‘s mobile design trends. Stay on SmashingMagazine.com for awhile, because it has all kinds of free downloads for icons, fonts, graphics, textures, tutorials, and WordPress themes. It’s a designer’s dream site.
- Mashable.com’s mobile web design post
If you’d rather have a how-to manual, Nokia has produced a comprehensive mobile visual design guide for newcomers on their forum, Forum.Nokia.com. They also have mobile web templates and code that you are welcome to use at will, provided you follow the very generous terms of their license agreement.
Go develop, and tell us what you made.
A message from mobiEnthusiast.mobi
Blogging as mobiEnthusiast, I’ve been nominated for a Champions in New Media Award for Blogger of the Year. Would you please vote for me? You don’t have to register or login or do any of that, just click the arrow next to my picture. When the arrow turns green, your vote counts. Comments are optional but appreciated. Voting ends 24 March 2010, so please vote now while it’s fresh in your mind. Thank you, thank you, and thank you!
– Holly
Mobile takes center stage at the 2010 South By Southwest Festival Interactive Track, which runs March 12 through March 16 at the South By Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, USA. The following is a partial list of seminars and training on the schedule.
What’s Hot in Mobile at SXSW
- Maps 2010: How iPad Impacts the LBS Market
- The UX of Mobile
- Touch + The Holy Grail of Delight
- Organizational Pitfalls on the Path to Multichannel Experience
- Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences?
- Mobile – the Great Channel Equalizer
- iPad: New Opportunities for Content Creators
- The Real Mobile Scoop – Agency, Manufacturer, and Carrier
- Web Evolution: The Rise of Mobile, APIs and Runtimes
- Is App-vertising the Answer
- Augmenting Your Brain With Android
- Google Hackathon: Mobile Maps, App Engine, Chrome Extensions
- What If Your Phone Had Five Senses?
- Cross Device Accessibility: Is This For Real?
- Building Mobile Games on the Windows Phone Platform
- Mobile Computing and it’s Contribution to Technology’s Exponential Growth
- The Final (Mobile) Frontier: Battery Life in Africa
- How We Built the SXSW Mobile App
- Convergence 2010: Ten Cool Things That Could Happen This Year
- Mobile Development with the Flash Platform: iPhone and More
- Augmented Reality – Gimmicky Trend or Market-Ready Technology?
- Pass it Back! Kid Apps on Grown-up Devices
- Location Beyond iPhone: Locating 100+M Phones
- Location-Based Marketing and Advertising: Targeting the Mobile Consumer
- Mobile Content is Social
- Mobile Advertising in 2010: How to Pay the Bills
- QR Codes and 2D Barcodes: Bridging Physical & Digital
- Mobile Commerce
- Mapping and Geolocation: Turnkey Approaches You Need to Know
The full SXSW Mobile schedule (may not be viewable on some phones) includes information on presenters and a summary of what each session will cover.
While you’re there, check out the updated SXSW.mobi site for mobile access to the South by Southwest Festival.
Every year the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, Texas, draws bigger crowds and more attention. Actually, South by Southwest (SXSW for short) is three separate events, and you can keep track of all of them at SXSW.mobi.
According to SXSW.mobi, here’s the scoop on this year’s events:
- The SXSW MUSIC AND MEDIA CONFERENCE showcases more than 1,500 musical acts from around the globe on over eighty stages in downtown Austin. SXSW Music 2009 takes place March 18 – 22, 2009.
- SXSW Film The SXSW FILM CONFERENCE AND FESTIVAL emphasizes on all aspects of the art and business of independent filmmaking. The SXSW Film Conference takes place March 13 – 17, 2009. The SXSW Film Festival runs from March 13 – 21, 2009.
- SXSW Interactive An incubator of new, cutting-edge technology, the SXSW INTERACTIVE FESTIVAL is ground zero for the world’s most creative web developers, designers, bloggers, wireless innovators and new media entrepreneurs. SXSW Interactive 2009 takes place March 13 – 17, 2009.
SXSW.mobi offers breaking news, detailed schedules, mp3s, videos and podcasts so attendees and participants (and the folks at home) can keep up with their favorite music and film festival. The site is frequently updated and sure beats guessing where to go to catch your favorite films and bands.
While you’re in town for the festivals, check out these other great Austin mobile sites
This has been a great week in Austin, Texas. It was a good chance to catch up on some great Texas traditions like floating down the Guadalupe River in an inner tube, trying some great local restaurants and sampling the local music scene. Ever on the lookout for dot mobi sites, I was not disappointed to find some local Austin mobi sites:
AustinWeather.mobi, for local Austin, Texas weather
HelloAustin.mobi, a mobile Austin, Texas city guide
sxsw.mobi, the mobile site for South by Southwest music festival, described here
Winksite.mobi Austin Blog, local Austin, Texas mobile bloggers’ site
There are others under development, so I’ll be sure to keep you updated on my next trip.
