Who put your big idea in that tiny phone?
Start Big, Scale Smart:
A new approach to mobile-first
As a designer, I've sat through countless kickoff meetings where "mobile-first" is tossed around like an unquestionable truth. And every time, I feel a slight cringe – not because mobile isn't crucial (it absolutely is), but because this dogma fundamentally misunderstands the creative process.
Watch any artist develop their style and you'll notice a pattern. They rarely begin confined to tiny spaces. Instead, they seek out room for expression – large canvases, open spaces, freedom to make broad gestures and bold strokes. They need space for happy accidents and unexpected discoveries. The constraint of a tiny canvas would kill these possibilities before they had a chance to emerge.
Yet here we are in digital design, being told to start with the smallest possible canvas for our brand expressions. It's like telling Pollock to develop his style using only a Post-it note.
The Real Cost of Starting Small
When we begin a project by designing for mobile screens, we unconsciously limit our creative vocabulary. Those expansive brand moments? Compressed. That innovative way to explain complex concepts? Hamburgerized. That delightful interaction that could build trust and engagement? Simplified to a tap.
Sure, we can "scale up" these mobile patterns to desktop later. But you don't get the power and intention of something conceived at scale. You get a stretched, hollow version of a big idea starting on a small screen.
Breaking Free from the Mobile Mindset
What if instead, we thought like artists? What if we gave ourselves permission to explore our brand's full potential before worrying about how to package it for different screens? This doesn't mean ignoring mobile – quite the opposite. It means respecting the creative process enough to let our best ideas emerge before we start solving for constraints.
It means:
Exploring how our story could unfold with space to breathe
Discovering interaction patterns that truly serve our users
Finding our visual voice without immediate compromise
The Art of Digital Translation
Once you've given your ideas room to breathe, translating them to mobile becomes an act of creative interpretation rather than compression. The result isn't less – it's more intense, more purposeful.
The typical mobile-first approach looks like this:
Start with a minimal mobile layout
Gradually add elements as screens get bigger
Turn simple taps into richer interactions
Call it responsive
But that's like taking a symphony and just removing instruments until it fits on a smaller stage. Instead, we should be arranging it specifically for a different venue, keeping the emotional core while adapting the execution.
Here's what that actually means:
Identify the key feeling or revelation you want users to experience
Break down your experience into its essential components
Look for mobile's unique strengths (touch, motion, intimacy) rather than seeing only its constraints
Find new ways to deliver the same emotional impact in a more focused context
Experience-First
Success isn't when your mobile version looks just like your desktop design. Success is when both versions deliver the same core experience in ways that feel native and powerful in their respective contexts.
Because that's what we're really after – not preserving our specific design solutions, but preserving the human moments that make our work meaningful in the first place.
Our users deserve experiences that were born from possibility, not constraint. And as creatives, we deserve the space to discover what those experiences could be.