Death, Taxes, and Viewport Chrome

Jason gave a talk at FOWD about encouraging designers to get to know a CMS (any CMS, really - just learn one). It’s since given rise to a new talk on rethinking your design process to deal with varying screen sizes and designing for systems rather than pages. Here’s the original:

Some things in life are certain: death, taxes, and - if you’re a web professional - the inability to know the capabilities, access speed and dimensions of the viewport through which your design is viewed. Welcome to your future. As a designer, it’s essential to know how your content and design will be consumed (or perceived) before you can prepare its presentation. These days, that means the involvement of a Content Management System, or CMS. Getting to know one - such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla or Expression Engine - can exponentially increase your capabilities as a designer without feeling trapped by the technology. To the contrary - becoming CMS-familiar can lead to greater creative freedom than you could ever have imagined. The tools are better than ever and their capabilities are just amazing. All just waiting for you.

Step up and take charge. The future IS the CMS.