1. What is Intrinsic Design?

Intrinsic in the context of application design implies getting to an experience that belongs to the device.

This term was coined by the one and only Jen Simmons while working at Mozilla on flex and grid-based layouts, but a curious mind could easily hop layout structures and go in the direction of exploring what belongs and what doesn't on a given medium for a whole lot of other design vocabulary. This is how Toucaan came about to be.

How is it different from Responsive Design?

One way to visualize the difference between responsive and intrinsic design is to consider the differences between a native mobile app and mobile web. A native app often feels more natural to use on the phone because its overall layout, design language, and often performance belongs to a phone. Whereas mobile web design is more likely going to be a squished version of the desktop layout tucked away under a hamburger menu. Read more about this here.