A new year means lots of blogs are posting "What will be hot in Web Design 2015" style posts. I usually scan over them quickly to see if anything exciting might be on the horizon.
I'm irritated by the fact that Responsive Web Design is still being added to these types of lists. Responsive Web Design is Web Design. It is not an add on, it's not parallax or flat design, it's simply Web Design. It's bringing the web to as many devices and users as possible. It's not an extention to web design because it is web design.
Most tech savvy people are aware that mobile is overtaking traditional desktop usage. Creating a fixed width website in this day and age is creating a website that isn't doing its job. We should have never limited the website to 960px in the first place.
Screens are getting bigger, mobile devices are increasing and you've no idea how people are browsing websites anymore. Exciting!
To illustrate this point, I am writing this on a viewport that is 2557px x 1242px! That's crazy screen space. Responsive web design isn't always about smaller screens.
Responsive Web Design isn't "hot". It's Web Design. It isn't going away as it's how we build for the web. It isn't something to add to your wish list. It is the web.
Is responsive web design a catch all solution? No. Will it solve all your problems? No. Do we have a way to go with the tech we have available? Yes. Responsive web design is evolving. The web is evolving. Technology is always evolving.
Responsive Web Design is Web Design.