I’m totally aware that in 2016, responsive web designs are going to create hype. But, rather than starting from the scratch or building a separate responsive website, is there any other method I can transport my static website to responsive?
There are no shortcuts, there are only Best Practice and the other crap. If you've used proper markup to begin with, it will be pretty much responsive automagically. Nothing else need be done. It may not resolve to a layout you want, but with proper markup and structure it's a fairly simple matter to add the fix. Why don't you give us a link to your site so we can see where we're starting? cheers, gary
Generally speaking if the site was written PROPERLY using ANY of the good practices we've been told to use for over a decade and a half -- which means dynamic fonts, elastic semi-fluid layout, and semantic markup with separation of presentation from content -- converting a site to responsive should be a no-brainer. You just tack on media queries to the design. SADLY, most people writing websites have had their heads so utterly and completely wedged up 1997's backside that they ignored all that, choose their HTML tags based on what they look like not what they mean, put CSS in their HTML instead of maintaining separation, throw classes at things in a presentational manner, have tables for layout, and use outdated markup methodologies that meant sleazing out their pages in a Tranny doctype. "transitional" quite literally meaning "in transition from 1997 to 1998 development practices". Said situation is exacerbated by sleazy nube predating tools like Dreamweaver, FrontPage, Web Expression or any other steaming pile with a "preview pane" or outright WYSIWYG as then the developer focused more on what it looks like on the screen they were in front of than they did the semantic structure and accessibility underneath. Part of why I say dicking around with a PSD first is NOT web design. Without seeing the page in question it's very hard to weigh in where on the autism spectrum the site may lie; could be anywhere from "Oh, that's easy just add a 30 or so lines to the stylesheet" to full on "I cans haz intarnets?!?" herpaderp re-re. If it was written anywhere near properly, it's trivial... but again, very few people took the time to learn what proper is and just sleazed sites out any-old-way.
It is hard to answer without looking at the site. Why don't you list the link then we will be in better position to help you.