How Do I Switch to a Mobile Design?

A request that we get frequently in our Help Tickets is "Can I switch my design to something mobile-friendly?"  The answer is: YES! And it is easier than you think! With your Typepad account, all of your blog designs are saved. You can apply your saved design to a current, new, or multiple blogs.  

To switch your blog to a mobile-friendly, or Responsive design, we recommend first creating a test blog. When it comes time to pick a design for your test blog under the "Design" tab, we have a huge selection of pre-made designs under the category "Design Lab (Responsive).  We have a selection of pre-made designs under the category "Design Lab (Responsive)":

These pre-made designs can be a starting point for editing and customizing a new design for your blog using the Design Lab at Design > Style.  The Design Lab was created so you do not need to use CSS to make customizations to your design. 

In addition to these themes, you can also set up a mobile design using the themes Snap, Sol, and the "Responsive" option of Theme Builder.

OK! You selected your design, layout, and applied it to your test blog.  There are plenty of ways to customize these themes the Design Lab and CSS if you have an Unlimited Plan or higher.  If you have joined the Beta team, you can take advantage of the "Style" option for Nimble Design Lab, which allows you to customize your design without the use of any code. 

Once you have your Responsive design just perfect for the world to see, it is time to apply it to your main blog.  Last Summer we shared tips on how to manage your saved blog designs, which you can apply here.  Switch over to the blog you want to make mobile-friendly and click the Design tab.  Scroll down to "Your Designs" and look for the Thumbnail for your new responsive design: 

Click "Actions", in the drop-down menu, choose "Apply."  Once you click this, the page will refresh with the message "The selected design has been applied to your blog. View your blog" on top.  Congratulations! You just made your blog mobile-friendly! 

A quick note, if you want to make all of your blogs in your account Responsive, you can follow the steps listed.  We do recommend creating a duplicate design for each blog (click "Actions > Duplicate") in case you want to make a design change for one blog but not have it apply towards the other blogs.