The Web Dev Notes Blog Presents:

Responsive Web Design Easter Egg

Article Continues Below

Three years ago in these pages, ALA technical editor Ethan Marcotte fired the shot heard ’round the web. ALA designer Mike Pick thought it might be fun to celebrate the third anniversary of “Responsive Web Design” (Web Dev Notes Issue No. 306, May 25, 2010) by secreting an Easter Egg in the original article; our illustrator, Kevin Cornell, rose to the challenge.

To see it in action, visit vpsbm.com/article/responsive-web-design, grab the edge of the browser window (device permitting), and perform the responsive resize mambo. (ALA’s Tim Murtaugh, who coded the Easter Egg, has provided a handy video demo of what you’ll see.)

Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

19 Reader Comments

  1. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Ha! Nice! I’ve often thought of that gesture as either “beeping” or “marcotting” but “Responsive Resize Mambo” works, too.

  2. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Haha, that is fresh! Clever Easter egg.

  3. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    @Doug Hanke:

    Tim Murtaugh calls that kind of resizing the “Browser Dance.”

  4. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Excellent Easter egg. Although I was hoping that when I seen Mambo, that there would maybe be some Lou Bega action.

  5. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    I distinctly remember the one with two rows of players. Very funny and clever illustrations

  6. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    This is not a typical responsive case because it is implemented by javascript but not css media query.

    Perhaps I can guess why @Tim Murtaugh did so. Because there are 4 JPGs totally costs 351KB and media query can not download only one that required. It’s a disaster for mobile performance. Am I right?

  7. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    @andre Implemented via JS, yes, but using the polyfill for the technique we hope will become a standard 🙂

    (That is to say, Picturefill, which we use for our illustrations anyway.)

  8. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Truly nice, but an “easter egg” should not be… secret? Someone else would have to find out, not you 😉

  9. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Awesome, Look like a fun 🙂

  10. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    wow great.. 🙂 such a great growth in Responsive Web Design

  11. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    That’s awesome. I’m gonna be up late again tonight coding some Easter eggs of my own into my new portfolio site. Thanks for sharing.

  12. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Responsive web design I want to implement on my website http://www.onlineessay.us/, although it is still in the process of development and content.

  13. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Great Awesome! Its look like Responsive Web Designing will have very big impact in web design world.. http://www.iplains.com/web-designing

  14. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Nice one

  15. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    That is so awesome! We do responsive clients for every one of our designs as you can see in our portfolio at http://www.cohesivewebdesigns.com but I had never thought about having the images change with every section! That’s awesome. Would you mind sharing the code that makes that possible?

  16. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Really nice concept with the alternating images! My web design agency in Leeds, UK are working on a couple of responsive Drupal websites with an illustrator and doing something similar – totally different art style. Much more graceful than these jQuery parallax scrolling sites that are trending all over the place.

  17. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Thank you so much for sharing this outstanding Web Design Stuff. It is definitely going to help me in near future.

  18. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Welcome to Digital Group Media we’re a small but effective team focused on creating the most effective web design Birmingham has to offer. We’re completely fixated with website design that doesn’t just look good, but delivers results for your organisation.

  19. Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

    Nice articles. currently google has announced responsive website for better ranking so you need to create or designing responsive website as well as mobile friendly for better ranking in google

Got something to say?

We have turned off comments, but you can see what folks had to say before we did so.

More from ALA

Designed for a Dead Language

Every language app in your pocket inherited a teaching method built for Latin. Understanding why that happened is a more useful design lesson than anything the apps themselves can teach you.
Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

Good designers, bad websites: a proposal

Designers are good people. Some designs exclude people anyway. Alan Dalton offers a practical fix: accessibility personas that help you recognize problems while you're designing, not after. Homework included.
Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

Design for Amiability: Lessons from Vienna

Computing was born in a Viennese café. Between 1928 and 1934, while Hitler plotted and Europe crumbled, a motley crew of mathematicians, philosophers, architects, and economists gathered weekly to puzzle out the limits of reason—and invented Computer Science in the process. What made their collaboration possible wasn't just brilliance (though they had plenty). It was amiability: the careful design of a social space where difficult people could disagree without destroying each other. Longtime Web Dev Notes contributing author Mark Bernstein mines this forgotten history for lessons that might just save today's embattled web from its worst impulses. Spoiler: it involves better coffee service and the looming threat of public humiliation.
Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

Design Dialects: Breaking the Rules, Not the System

Design systems aren't component libraries—they’re living languages. Rigid adherence to visual rules creates brittle systems that break under contextual pressure. Fluent systems bend without breaking.
Web Dev Notes Proxy © 2026 | Powered by Cloudflare Worker

Discover more from Web Dev Notes

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading