The community wants great new themes for Drupal. How do we get designers and themers to create them? Someone discussed a contest but may designers are oppsed to that.
A suggestion: Call for volunteers to participate in a team effort where they will be grouped with others (perhaps 2 designers paired with 2 themers/UI specialists) and have them come up with a team name which will also be the name of their theme.
Give them a deadline and some publicity on d.o. with their bios and photos or portfolio links.
Then let them go to work. Whatever they create will be added to contrib themes and will have their names, photos and portfolos linked.
The work is showcased by d.o. and they will benefit from exposure.
There is no prize money but there are social and community benefits. Participants are not doing work on spec, they know it is contrib and they are not "competing." With 4 people working on a theme, there participants can break down a large project into a set of assignments that are reasonable for each member.
People find new friends and collaborators.
As a by-product, members of the community might say, "Thanks for your work on that theme, Really nice job." (If you have questions about this concept, watch "My Cousin Vinnie" for clarification.)
Comments
It's about more than just getting new themes
The way that I see it, there's actually two goals that need to be addressed:
It seems to me that the best way to do both would be through a GSoC-style project where we offered a scholarship for a couple of promising young designers who were selected based on the strength of their existing portfolios and paired up with experienced Drupal theming/design mentors to develop new Drupal themes that would then be contributed back to the community.
This would:
We've hashed this out and
We've hashed this out and debated this out here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/20016
Merlinofchaos, webchick, brought up GSOC/GHOP. Several other people have mentioned that effort didn't produce much results. We had two entries, one didn't complete, the other came out ok. Many mentioned students is a good way to get some work done, but we don't expect timely, nor beautiful designs from that effort.
I see this as a separate, parallel effort from the theme challenge. Regarding the theming challenge, read the wiki page http://groups.drupal.org/node/20079
I'm well aware of the debate
I'm well aware of the debate in the other thread, having been an active participant in it ;-) My point here is that efforts to develop some good new contrib themes and to bring new design talent into the Drupal community are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
I've also discussed past GSOC and GHOP projects with both merlinofchaos and webchick, both online and in person, and while I'm not familiar with the details of those projects, my suspicion is that they may not ultimately been successful because they either didn't target designers and/or they didn't include mentorship from experienced themers and design professionals.
To be crystal clear, what I am suggesting is not a GSOC or GHOP project, but a Drupal-run GSOC-like initiative that would specifically target the design community and include mentorship by themers and design professionals already in the community.
It's all about the curve
A program that pairs themers in the Drupal community with talented design students would be an awesome opportunity for everyone involved.
As a student in the design program at CalArts and now in a Design/CS major at Fordham I've met several really talented design students, most of whom have dismissed the web as a rigid, complicated and often alienating separate world and almost all of whom have no idea how to theme a CMS. With the economy crumbling and the decline of print media for web alternatives, many of my peers are re-considering web design and are now attending courses for HTML, CSS and Javascript, but they still have no idea how to theme a CMS. With the right help, however, I guarantee that some of them could design some really beautiful themes - you just can't expect them to learn all of the technical aspects on their own.
If a program were particularly discerning about selecting students (like using Mark Boulton as a final judge for its applicants) it could become an honor to be selected and if the promotional material is designed effectively I think that a lot of students would apply for the opportunity to to add drupal theming to their resumes (trusting that the program will teach them the technical aspects and best practices).
One big question, of course, is whether there are community themers that can guide student designers with limited programming knowledge to develop high-quality themes. The program would also require specific design objectives (such as an art deco-style blog, a portfolio site that appears to be a leather journal, a crayola-inspired website for elementary school classes, etc.), as asking someone to design a "good-looking theme" is like requesting for someone to compose a "well-written essay" - both require direction.
Another question is whether the students and mentors would be financially compensated and who would be charged to maintain the themes. I'm currently putting together a GSoC proposal primarily to learn from the project and to begin establishing myself in the community, but I wouldn't be able to consider taking on such a project if it weren't a paid opportunity. If the program can be exceptionally selective and demand fewer than six hours each week, students may elect to do it for much less than what the GSoC pays, but a stipend of at least $250 would be necessary to keep them from giving up midway when other commitments weigh in.
It could also be a cool recruiting and outreach effort, with different companies like TNT, Lullabot, Four Kitchens, Zivtech, etc. each sponsoring and guiding a student designer to create a new contributed theme, with the final products featured on drupal.org. I'd participate.
Well here's the dilly. The
Well here's the dilly. The Org or community in general should probably not be the ones to put the money up for the themes. "Sponsoring a design project" and "purchasing a design" are really only different in semantics. It's money transferred for the production of a design, and the part of the spirit of the Drupal community has been the absence of the community or it's guiding board purchasing designs and modules for distribution. If the community at large paid for the designs, for example, the core maintainers may feel forced to push the resulting themes closer to core or work to include them, whether it's in the best interest of Drupal or not.
Having said that, many of the popular modules that Drupal runs on, and pretty much all of the really advanced modules, have come from for-profit companies spending lots of money, developing them, and contributing them back after they've made the rest of their money. The themes, for the most part, "feel" like hobby projects (and I'm sure not all are) and don't have that "I got paid for this" ethos.
So to loop back, maybe it really should be a few representatives from the design community in Drupal going to the big contributors and build shops and evangelizing the donation of some crazy awesome themes. Essentially, ask the designers and themers at these shops to offer something back to the community that their company, and in extension salary, has been supported by.
I know programmers in the majority love seeing their programs used, and writers love seeing their work educate and inform. Designers can't be so jaded as to not feel the same about their designs defining the identity of the sites that pick their so-skinned themes? As we circle and circle, we seem to come back to the notion that money is the way to get design in Drupal.
Money is not a good motivator for building a community.
Cash was only introduced as part of the contest suggestion.
If the intention is to build a design/theming/UI community that integrates with the coding community, that is a wonderful goal and we must continue to examine ways to achieve it.
Form a design committee to approach shops and theme developers for contributions Then it is imperative that the community give recognition for them.
Don't underestimate the power of a dozen or so emails that say, "I saw the work you did on (theme, module, design, script...etc.) great job! Everyone is impressed with your effort."
When you make the community receptive to people showing off their skills (whether code or visual,) you get people clamoring to participate.
If recognition will do it, by all means, let's get crackin'
The discussion on the other thread ended up at:
If recognition and praise are acceptable compensation, by all means, let's get crackin'. Just as professional code developers are encouraged by the community to offer their modules, so too should professional designers be encouraged by the community to offer their designs. And themers their themes.
So who has the ethos in this group, or in the Drupal design community, to head this up and get results? Let's identify the people and start asking them to push.
Cool
Maybe we could also provide some project focuses, like a "Drupal Summer of Themes."
One small hangup I think we run into with Drupal themes is the lack of direction in submitted themes. Especially if we're going to be trying to pull new themers/designers in on these, would providing a focus or challenge be appealing?
Over in Theme Development, someone started a brainstorm wiki for (what we don't want) a contest. The useful bit from this, not the contest part, but the categories that have been compiled. Instead of thinking of them as categories, what if we approached it as "designing your team's interpretation of a best-practices implementation of _________ kind of site."
The list currently is:
Categories
Audience Categories
Profession Categories
Features (optional)
With "features," for example, the aim could be "a theme that showcases ________ function."
For "audience," maybe: "a theme which would appeal to ___________ demographic."
etc. etc.
The biggest challenge here, I think, is having the teams define the "Why."
What I would find most academically appealing is the need for the teams to justify why they made their design and themeing choices. With their names on the project and feature pages, this provides a great opportunity for the designers and themers to showcase their design/theme theories to the greater design/theming community, as well as provide referential material and report.
As with GSoC, our list wouldn't be exclusive -- theme teams could just as easily declare their own focus. I just seems to me that what would separate a guided theme push and soliciting "pretty" themes from the greater community would be a little bit of structure?
I am not a practicing designer, however, and don't know what the community would think about this approach. While, to me, potentially building the de facto or one of a select minority of revered themes would be a strong motivator, this may not be the case?
Let's take a step back
I think one of the major problems is most designers are uninterested in doing code, not even html/css let alone Php.
In Drupal we tend use the words designer and themer interchangeably when in fact designers work pictures while themers are front end developers who work with html, css, jquery, graphics, javscript, etc... They are very different skills. A small minority can do both but many "web" designers just make PSD's and hand it off to a front end coder.
I heard some talk that Drupal 6 created module templates to override "for designers". Well I think most designers could care less, but the ability to override module templates is fantastic for themers.
So maybe we can get some student designers to create some nice mockups that themers can make into good themes, or we can find another avenue. Let's just not kid ourselves that designers and themers are the same.
I have to agree with this
I have to agree with this one. You only really find designer / coder types in smaller shops or freelance, and most of them aren't all that great at one or the other skillsets (sometimes neither). My main concerns with graphic designs for themes (or any other sort of websites) are things like flexibility, modularity in design, efficiency, etc. I'm just happy when I can get a designer to realize that their beautiful giant background image that requires multiple methods of cheating / simulating transparency, and breaks instantly under a ton of different circumstances, is maybe not the best solution to the design requirements :0
I'm still of the opinion that anyone who does graphic design for websites should have a decent technical understanding of how these things go together, and preferably before they start the design. It's always a shame when you get into a designer / developer argument due to browser limitations, that could have been avoided in the first place.
That being said, there are designer / themers out there...
Agreed. A themer (coder) has
Agreed. A themer (coder) has to understand how Drupal works and how users are going to manipulating the contents using different modules, in myriad of different ways. A designer OTOH could care less how things work in Drupal.
For the case in Drupal, a themer has to be teamed with a designer, or someone who can do both. It is tough to get designer in as they are not themer. It may be easier to get themer ...
CK Ng | forDrupal.com
- we make drupal beautiful
CK Ng | myFineJob.com
What if ...
We did some Drupal Dojo style events where the lesson is to make a good theme. We invite some folks to do some Photoshop mockups and maybe even vote on them, then have some really good themers go through the process of making a good theme that gets completed and contributed.
Then have some else lead another lesson with another mockup, or break people into groups to make a theme. Could be fun.
Comments...
A good thing to note is -
In reference to "Themers" : As someone who might spend a little time on the drupal board or look into the matter especially regarding or dealing with Drupal, will eventually find that there are a multitude of different levels of "Themers."
"Theming," or creating Design to actual Themes especially for Drupal can get pretty deep. I suppose it could be said that it could range from "getting the thing to visually work or convey an idea on a minimal level" to "having it improved reworked overworked continually and 'compliant'."
Also, someone may be a Designer, and still have "Themer" or coding skills but not as strong as a community might wish to comply standards. Or, a "Themer" may have coding/compliance skills but, not excel on the Design aspect so much.
Having accessibility to bring all skillsets together to accomplish the goal of bringing more templates into Drupal is a benefit. So setting up teams or getting people to come forward to help (whatever it takes) or even setting up a project/issue wiki board for each new theme for the development cycle (besides something like cvs,) would be great. Possibly even a separate website or it's own section. Benefit would be the ability to post each project and discuss / contribute / and keep track of it. (Preferrably something that doesn't require a Patch to participate.)
I think, if possible, it might be a good idea to try to keep it open on the Designer level. Someone who may have good design skills and can STILL contribute great designs, but doesn't necessarily have the hard-core themer coding skillset for Drupal may be able to help out/contribute. By doing so, it may mean that at least another additional Excellent theme or two or three may come out of this, that otherwise wouldn't.
The Only reason I mention this is that you may just end up getting more participation if you don't limit the requirements UpFront.
You may want to break down the submission/Contest, "or whatever you want to call it" into Stages.
1. Call to Action / Get a consensus of people with interest to submit.
2. Call to Action / Deadline for DESIGN or mockup of submissions. (mockups or comps only)
a.) Wiki or Venue to collaborate or exchange help or assign Teams for Coding and Development of Designs.
b.) Stage or deadline for Initial Run / Coding development or actual theme code.
c.) Date for final themeing or code completion and a date to go by to set to core or CVS.
3. Voting and Polling would be an important factor / Since part of the key to consider is at what point voting occurs and at what Stage it occurs. You may have voting in the initial run or the team assembly discussion may determine this, and of course final polling or voting.
Sprints or BOF type sessions would be great to bring people together or to create teams. The only problem with that are that not everyone can be at that location.
theme contribution
This is a great group, just noticed it..
Also we just contributed a minimal theme, comments welcome http://drupal.org/project/id-facta, hope to do more in the future....
The hard question
The hard question is how do we get fantastic designers to design some sexy themes and release them to the public. We have a lot of people who can theme (code) these together. What we need is the art gifted designers who can make beautiful things.
This is going to take a few things....
This last one needs to be put on by designers and, I expect, it will look different than the GSOC type efforts we have done in the past. Coding and designing are different in many ways and those unique features need to be embraced. So, anyone know how to do this?
I'm thinking of starting with a survey. Thoughts?
Matt Farina
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.geeksandgod.com
www.superaveragepodcast.com
www.mattfarina.com
Could you explain what you
Could you explain what you mean by
Second, I would suggest that already-present discussions like this thread and the one it was borne from are enough information to start -- skip the survey, or limit the query to the contributors of the most used themes or the themes on Drupal in the mode of what we're discussing here.
The discussion drew us to one particular conclusion, being evangelizing the rockstar designers and/or themers (as they may do both) at theme shops and start encouraging them to release themes or designs to the community. Acquia is already doing this, having encuraged TopNotchThemes to release both Acquia Marina and Acquia Slate(a pair of very excellent themes), as well as a "very modified" version of Marina called Waffles. I'd suggest taking this approach.
An anonymous survey is
An anonymous survey is great. Post your questions!
What's the payoff?
Supporting contrib themes is a LOT of work. Ours happen to be pretty popular so the issue queue is more consuming than most, but Drupal's culture is definitely not a "put a nice theme out there and walk away" approach. The good thing about this is that it encourages (requires) version control, structured issue queues, releases, interaction between the theme creator and community, etc. The bad thing is that this is a lot of overhead and expectations for the theme creator.
Put a nice theme out there and guaranteed that you'll have issues within days for "Can we get a fluid version?" and "What about RTL support?" and "Does this work with the color module?" and "Please add drop downs" and "How do I change XYZ?" and "This theme is broken with Obscure Module Q and my site's not live so you're going to have to install it yourself to see the problem"
Themes are our business, and between that and the partnership with Acquia, it's obvious why putting these themes out there makes sense for us from a marketing perspective. But we're a full time team of four themers, one of whom spends a large amount of time every week just dealing with those issue queues. Most people don't have that luxury. Good Drupal themers and designers are in high demand right now and don't exactly need to be doing free themes in order to promote themselves to get clients.
There's been a lot of talk about the technical side, the process, and the resources here. Not that those aren't important but let's not forget the economic side too, that Drupal experience can mean increased rates/business for designers and front end coders.
~~~
{ Drupal Themes from TopNotchThemes }
~~~
{ TopNotchThemes | Fusion Drupal Themes }
Thanks a ton for the input
Thanks a ton for the input Stephanie.
This feels like one of the big hurdled we need to jump. Many people in the Drupal community, especially those that haven't spent hours upon hours up to their elbows in theme back-ends, don't realize that there's in the least an equal demand on theme maintenance as there is on modules.
This is why I think we need to use your example as an archetype for fostering new theme growth for Drupal. As you said, it makes sense for your company to donate a few excellent themes to the community, even if it means a loss of billable time for one of your team members.
If I can use the company I work for as an example, it takes a lot of time and resources to maintain the 50-some modules we've developed, revived or extended for our various projects. A lot of this time is spent, as is for TopNotchThemes, on community support requests. Drafts, Webmail Plus, XMPP, Darren Ferguson's OpenID suite, File Framework, LDAP provisioning, RDF, yada yada. My point is, we like being able to give our modules back to the community, but it isn't free for us to do so.
However, I think the cost for a firm to maintain modules is more acknowledged in the community than for a theme firm. I think a great way to address that is for members of the community to encourage the bigger shops, like TopNotch, to support even a "bare-bones" theme, to get their names into the community as a relevant Drupal-capable firm and help drive the quality of themes used by Drupal developers. If we had, for example, five, or even ten, standards-focused themes like the Zen project or Genesis, the Drupal community would drive themers to consider the merits of standards non-compliance or create a separate market of specialty themes. Or if there were a few more themes like Marina and Slate, it may encourage theme developers to release and maintain fewer, but higher-quality, themes.
And as has been said many, many times, themes and design can be quite separate. A smaller number of themes in an overall better-maintained, better-documented state would provide a higher-quality platform for designers to build front-ends on top of, increasing the "pretty" factor of Drupal themes in general. Plus, sub-theme development can be a much better option for someone who wants to develop themes but doesn't have the time to maintain them to the degree the community demands.
Agreed... the upkeep, oy vey!
We've thought about doing a GPL theme or two several times, and it always comes back to us not being able to devote the attention to the projected overhead for maintaining the thing -- we have too much client work to even get our own website up (common problem i know)..
I'd be totally willing to design a theme (photoshop only) and work with a themer or two to get it done, but really don't have the resources at all to support it once it's done, especially since we will be releasing some modules in the near future and i'm scared to death of what that will entail.
stephthegeek you're bang on
stephthegeek you're bang on the money, that said, if an outstanding designer came to me and wanted to collaborate I would strongly consider it. The simple reason is that I am not a designer, but I am a themer, and I Drupal indeed needs more top quality themes so I would support at least one.
Designers and developers are not that different.
After having dealt with many people skilled in either discipline, it turns out the means to encourage their best efforts is amazingly similar. Just as the Drupal developer community has grown, so can the Drupal design/theme/UI community blossom.
Good themers are in demand right now. What better opportunity is there for up-and-coming talent to learn (and increase their $value) than by helping to maintain themes? While the community benefits, more experienced themers have an opportunity to train those they will eventually employ.
Drupal's growth rate is truly staggering. How does the developer community do it? Interns? Camps, meetups and conferences? By operating a meritocracy? By establishing an effective way for people to interact while learning real skills that will help advance their careers?
Designers and themers are no different from developers in that respect. Growing a community of visually adept Drupalists can be done most quickly using even the simplest forms of outreach. Extending the developer community to better include themers is one way. Look at our little Design for Drupal group. It has grown from around 50 people to more then 250 in a few weeks. We've identified problems and discussed solutions. How do we get this thread (or a similar one) to have more exposure on the Drupal.org site? How do we reach out to more members of the community?
I once asked my typography instructor: "What is the single most important thing a person can do to produce great typography?
"Pay more attention to type," was his answer.
That advice has never failed me.
One difference seems to be
One difference seems to be the two cultures of how to maintain a module vs. how to maintain a theme. While it seems to be a standard for very influential modules, like Views, to be maintained by a single developer, many of the smaller modules on their way to attaining that level are maintained by a number of people, answering the queue and submitting patches again the module's CVS. It may be my inexperience with the Drupal theme community, but I have a feeling that it is very much a standard that the person who built a theme maintains it. This would indicate why there are so many very-similar themes in /project -- a maintainer won't let someone submit a feature patch, so they make a new theme.
A theme, on the back end, is really no different from a module. It's code, hopefully efficient code, that manipulates the transmission and display of information, yes? If we can begin to encourage collaborative maintenance of themes as a standard, by focusing on the "themes as code" rather than "themes as my personal artistic creation" (no matter how elegant the coding may have been), we can start to bridge the perception gap and probably improve the quality of the themes as well. A seasoned themer taking on someone new as an assistant maintainer provides apprentice labor for the journeyman and experience for the novice.
Just my thoughts, though.
On the second part of your post, I think the question is how articles get promoted to the front page of Drupal.org.
My opinion, for what is
My opinion, for what is worth, as a themer.
It is not so important to have great free themes. The important thing is to have great themes, free or commercial, doesn't matter. Everybody can afford the cost of a theme if they are making a site for one of their clients.
I am noticing commercial themers more often now (us being one of them), and of course there will be more hopefully, with time, when making commercial drupal themes becomes a truly profitable business. I hope so, because the more themes are out there, the more the drupal userbase grows and means more business for us.
So in my opinion the new themes/themers is very much related with the growth of the userbase. If drupal users grow, new themers will appear. With new themers appearing the userbase will grow...
If you look at the other CMS's there are not many great free themes. The best ones are released from commercial themers, but still their quality is not even near to their commercial ones.
Theme Projects, Drupally (Open Source Design?)
What if the Drupal community were to extend it's Module building/sharing/collaboration model to the arena of Themes?
For instance... a 'Designer', or 'Themer', or 'Programmer' could say- "hey, I have this great idea for a crayon based theme for elementary schools". They submit whatever work they are able to, whether it's PSD's, JPGs, or CSS. Themers interested in the crayon based theme can come in and assist with compliance. Designers can assist in polishing the design or creating off-shoots that use part of the theme as a base (let's say rounded corners, CSS wizardry, or some useful theme override).
I think the tricky part here might be motivating Designers to participate in a intellectual property sharing and collaboration model they are not used to.
With modules and functionality, we have come to expect that the majority of what we need will be out there somewhere in the community. But with design and Themes, I think it is something most of us approach as something we will have to do mostly from scratch. It doesn't have to be completely new to be good, or even original.
So how to set this up? Maybe it's already set up, and I just don't know about it.... in which case: How do we make it more visible (esp to designers) ? :) And how do we make it user-friendly for both designers and themers?
Pain in life is necessary. Suffering is optional.
Changes are needed at the root
Changes are needed at the root of Drupal's theme repository if Drupal is ever going to be known for Great themes - which is far far far from the case these days.
I made a post at http://groups.drupal.org/node/21538 that I think describes what we need if people are going to become serious about developing high grade themes for Drupal.
The primary problem is this: No really good theme artist is going to want to put their theme into a big long stack of 470+ uncategorized themes. There is no way for the good stuff to bubble to the top. Without that you have a big ugly mess that no-one wants to sift through. Right now we cant find the wheat for all the chafe.
Derek
https://coraltechgroup.com
easy solution, voting with
easy solution, voting with weight determined by average vote.
and somehow discourage people from contributing themes with incomplete codebase. ran into that today with a non-profit client, standard drupal regions, no $footer in the page.tpl.php. pretty messed up.
I meant to respond to this post with my last one
About voting though, Catherine brought up a really good point about it here: http://groups.drupal.org/node/21538#comment-74659
She said:
I think that is a pretty interesting idea. I don't think that voting api supports this yet but it might be able to with a few modifications...
https://coraltechgroup.com
Much of this is addressed
Much of this is addressed with the d.o redesign.
From personal experience I can tell many are put off contributing themes to d.o because its a lot of work to do so. You need to fight your way through a maze of CVS lingo and sheer amount of reading and learning just to contribute one theme is astounding.
Then after that d.o tells you you have to maintain the project, thats one of the worst things of all, you are locked into giving support else someone can just claim your project.
Lets break that down - you spend 100hrs building a couple of stunning themes and want to contribute them. Then you need spend about 10 hours just reading all the CVS docs and getting up the courage to actually make a commit (that is after you get a CVS account, and yes its by application only sort of thing), then you need to learn how to tag/branch releases, then build a project page, upload a screenshot, create a release node and manage them. Then after all that d.o tells you need to stick around or else your project will be marked as "abandoned" and anyone can take it over.
Still feel like contributing that theme?
Why do you think Wabi, Pixture and Twilight were abandoned about a month after they were released? Its too much work.
I hope so
I look forward to seeing what the Drupal redesign is like. The current site is a bit clunky in the area of themes...
I hope that they use a bit more "drill down" style tools for their modules and themes. TAGS are the key says me. We can't classify our themes and even if we could there is no way to browse or search for tags...
I agree about the CVS stuff. I don't like CVS either. It is a royal pain. Pretty soon I am going to need to get a lot better at it though. I used to use WinCVS and it was a nightmare. I think turtleCVS is a bit better so says my brother...
https://coraltechgroup.com
I like voting too
I like voting too and I think that would go a long way. A categorization method would allow theme designers to design themes for specific purposes though and that would be the best. Imagine being able to design a theme for numismatists, antique shops, or car lovers. Those kinds of themes could be tagged and sortable by tags. It would be so nice to be able to search tags too. But I am a dreamer...
https://coraltechgroup.com
Do you need me?
Hi!
I learnt about this group on the Drupal home page, and I decidied to join.
I'm a Graphic Interface Designer, and I'm a great lover of Drupal. I started doing Drupal themes in January 2009 - though I still have a lot to learn about Drupal themeing.
A few sites I've themed are www.cnariostudios.com & www.bencosisioma.com. You can see what I'm really capable of doing (in terms of GUI design skills) on my Deviantart gallery - http://cnario.deviantart.com
I will love to be involved in the Drupal Themes Design.
http://cnariostudios.com | http://cnario.deviantart.com
Com'n in!
Awesome and welcome in, of course we need you! Let us know whatever you need, by all means if you have a question contact me personally, I'd be most happy to answer them:)
Welcome!
Welcome to D4D. Thanks for taking the first step towards contributing back to Drupal by introducing yourself to the group.
We always need need more themes, so I encourage you to build some themes that can be contributed back to the Drupal community. Also, keep an eye on this group for other projects or initiatives that may interest you.
Perhaps the best piece of advice I can give is: Don't wait for an invitation! Drupal is a "do-acracy," meaning that every bug report, feature request, and new theme needs someone to actually do the work. If someone doesn't volunteer and follow through, the work won't get done. So please don't be discouraged if people don't give you direction -- just dive in!
Meanwhile, feel free to post any questions you have.
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Co-founder, Four Kitchens | IRC: toddross
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Digital Strategist and Partner
Four Kitchens: Big ideas for the web
IRC: toddross
Thanks
Thanks for the encouraging comments.
Anyway, I launched a new drupal site on Sunday. As it stands, it is the biggest and most complicated drupal site I've ever built. Could you guys go through it and let me know my weaknesses - in terms of designing a contributed theme for drupal.
http://cnariostudios.com | http://cnario.deviantart.com
http://cnariostudios.com | http://cnario.deviantart.com
What's the link?
Can you post a link to the site you launched? Also, I should note that the best way to review a theme is to check the theme itself: the CSS, use of template.php, etc. It's probably not a good idea to post all that stuff there, but if you want to give some of us a peek, you can ping us on IRC in #drupal-design. My username is below.
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Co-founder, Four Kitchens | IRC: toddross
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Digital Strategist and Partner
Four Kitchens: Big ideas for the web
IRC: toddross
Sorry for the missing link.
Sorry for the missing link. Its http://star234ng.com. What are my short comings?
Thanks.
http://cnariostudios.com | http://cnario.deviantart.com
like to contribute, but not sure if I'm qualified
Been working with drupal since late 2006 and created several drupal sites. Creating a theme can be done in so many different ways and I am still trying to find a more, or be more effective when theming drupal sites. Regarding this I'm a big fan of css frameworks. Creating a theme together with others would be really nice and I sure like to give something back to this amazing community. Here are some of my drupal sites (design, layout, css):
http://www.midtsiden.no
http://www.hellfragger.no
http://www.cornertape.net
http://www.maxprint.no
http://www.ndm.no
http://www.oskk.no
http://www.osoyro-dyreklinikk.no
testprojects
http://www.macbox.no/cmngr (not finished :p)
http://www.macbox.no/stortsett (xhtml/css only)
http://www.macbox.no/cenit (xhtml/css only)
http://www.macbox.no/hp/ (xhtml/css only)
I'm ready for work anytime!
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http://www.mortenn.no
Dive in!
minus: If you've already built a Drupal theme, you're already 100% qualified to contribute themes back to Drupal.org. That said, it's not really a matter of whether you're qualified -- it's whether you take the initiative to join an existing project or start your own.
Please see my reply above regarding getting involved in the Drupal community ("Welcome!"). The best advice I can give you is not to wait for people to hand you work. Hang out in D4D, browse the issue queues for contributed themes and theme-related bugs or improvements to Drupal core, and dive in wherever possible!
Thanks for introducing yourself and making yourself available. Please don't be discouraged, though, if no one hands you a project. Seek one out yourself or start your own. Just dive in!
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Co-founder, Four Kitchens | IRC: toddross
Todd Ross Nienkerk
Digital Strategist and Partner
Four Kitchens: Big ideas for the web
IRC: toddross
Moving beyond 'shell' design
As a noob Drupal themer (and one who's running on 4 hours sleep), one major issue stands out for me: the majority (not all) of available themes are a one-size-fits-all 'shell design' that meet the generic needs of Drupal core. This may be a generalization, but is not a criticism, shell design serves its purpose.
However, as a visual designer I've been schooled to look beyond shell design and, at a minimum, consider the unique brand and business goals, site objective, and the needs and the tastes of the target audience - no matter the size of the site. Inevitably, this means that the outcome of the site's taxonomic and topological architecture is a set of page types that each serve a unique purpose; consequently each page type has its own specifications and requires its own page design. Drill down into http://www.theonion.com or http://www.ubuntu.com/ and you'll quickly see what I'm getting at.
From my perspective, what makes creating a robust theme such a challenge is the difficulty in designing themes that do little more than serve the needs of Drupal core. Shell design works in many cases, but if you want your site to stand out you may benefit from a different design approach.
wolfraem (Wed, 2009-03-25 16:20) points to a good path in categorizing themes by purpose (echoed by deeporange1 - Tue, 2009-04-21 23:30). Maybe it's an absurd idea, but if there was a way to spec out base requirements for the variety of sites wolfraem lists (maybe design for set install profiles?), perhaps more designers would jump into the fray. Blogs need one set of designs, but newspaper sites need another.
Like programmers, designers usually respond well to a good set of specs; I'm guessing most would welcome the chance to design themes that meet a unique purpose. And perhaps a contest where their sites are judged beyond visual appeal, but by how well the design meets requirements, would entice a few outsiders to drink the Drupal nectar. If you're doubtful, take a look at the categories in Communication Art's Interactive Design annual (http://www.commarts.com/Interactive/cai09), a madly successful contest that any agency designer would like to see her/his name in; note that each category isn't restricted to one category but instead showcases exemplary entries.
I agree with the other entry barriers to Drupal theming that have been expressed in this thread, and certainly I'm thrilled to see they are being addressed with Drupal 7. I'm hoping that I've shed some light on a issue that I haven't seen discussed (apologies if I've missed it), and certainly I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes.
Best regards,
tom
+1 to accessible themes, RDFa and Hijax.
EDIT: Just found this thread started by deeporange1 http://groups.drupal.org/node/21538 - Nice one! Sheepishly change my post to read "Me too"
spec out base requirements
I think this is a great idea, would you put your hand up to draft some specs, you can start a wiki page here or a book/documentation page on d.o, that would be a great contribution.
At least if we can start with some basics - blog, newspaper, small business ecommerce?
Yes
Hand raised. I'll start with the basics you recommend.
tight for time
I've been swamped since I've raised my hand and have only thought about ways to tackle the problem.
These specs seem like they would be best aligned with an install profile for generic site types, like newspaper, blog, ecommerce, design studio portfolio, etc. It's a somewhat academic exercise to design for drupal core, but when you start improving a site's functionality with modules the waters muddy quickly. I'm wondering if designers would be better served by a Drupal HIG...
Take a look here, we've
Take a look here, we've taking the bull by the horns and are doing it, we're calling them Design Profiles - http://adaptivethemes.com/crowd/design-profiles-to-guide-drupal-designers
I want to share the love with these, so later today I will post asking for help, in the hope that a small team can adopt a Profile and build it (couple of themers + a designer, that sort of thing).