I’ve just accepted a job offer at Future Platforms, a mobile design company, which I’m very excited about. I first met Tom Hume and Bryan Rieger at a Wired Sussex event when I first moved to Brighton, and I was delighted to be invited to an interview a few weeks ago.

As mobile has started to explore the spectrum of possibility, I have become increasingly interested in it. A mobile phone no longer does just 1 or 2 things. It does not even do 10 things, or 20 things. It does as many things as you can imagine and build. A mobile phone that can access web content and has a flexible and inviting platform for developers is unlimited.

One of the reasons I’ve been interested in mobile design is because it is a restricted format. I like restrictions because they are challenges you have to get around; in a way, restrictions are helpful guides. In the current state of play, anything a designer makes for a mobile device has to fit a small screen with a limited colour resolution. One of my projects in my final year at Reading University involved designing for mobile: specifically, I had to research routes from airports Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, and then condense the route into a sequence of images which would guide a student from the airport to Reading station. You can see part of the project here.

Though new devices are bringing users richer experiences, the nature of the device, which is smaller than our laptop and desktop screens, can’t compare. The content needs to be designed differently. Even the iPhone, which in my opinion gives mobile users the best experience available right now, isn’t perfect: anything which requires tapping and zooming isn’t optimised in the first place. It’ll be very interesting to see the developments in this field in the next few years, and I’m very excited to have an opportunity to work in this field now.