My Drupal Blog - CMS - Comments

Well, yes, Drupal.org needs

John Sprout — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 07:06:52 -0700

Well, yes, Drupal.org needs a new theme. The current one is tired and, more than a little bit sad. I always have to steer clients away from the site so that they don't think I'm going to give them something that amateurish! But Expression Engine is not a heck of a lot better as a site. The drop down menus are all wrong for the look. Well, what can you do, it's expression engine and I know those guys! Surprised they're stil in business anymore, LOL. After my experience with pmachine, all I can say is stay away, stay away!

Anyway, thanks for the great post. I'm sure it'll raise a lot of controversy.

Well I have seen the

Alexei Rayu — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 11:49:59 -0700

Well I have seen the Expression Engine. There is nothing special there that can't be themed in Drupal. It is true that most Drupal themes are poor as for the design. But that is NOT the Drupal's fault. As a SpryDev.com's designer, I have been able to learn how nice Drupal can be - and i am still learning. Maybe you will be pleased to look at the following designs to see that Drupal CAN be nice:
http://www.sprydev.com/design-gallery
These themes may also show my quest for the design in Drupal progress.
So, thank you Lawrence! Your current theme is a good example of what Drupal can do! Nothing is short of what Expression Engine has! So let us not shame our worlds best CMS and make good web sites! =)

Interesting comments. I did

Laurence — Sat, 12 May 2007 10:22:39 -0700

Interesting comments.

I did exactly the same as Barry and Dan, initially getting drawn in by the slicker looking stuff, before actually realising that they weren't what I was looking for. Certainly Joomla did, and may well still, output a large chunk of tables; and having just spent time getting the hang of CSS I had no desire to go back. But as a designer it was the good looking stuff which grabbed my attention first.

Barry - nice looking site suggestions. I think the CodeIgniter site was actually designed by the same people who did the ExpressionEngine site, as they are both part of the EllisLab Network. If anyone's interested there's an article over at Digital Web by the designer all about the design process.

Laurence

Good article. I would love

Rene Hache — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:38:04 -0700

Good article.

I would love to see the Drupal community develop a theme based on the Layout Gala example (http://blog.html.it/layoutgala/) or something like it. That way the possibility of developing a core theme where the user could create many different layouts would be phenomenal.

I have been theming Drupal sites for awhile now, and the biggest advantage on having my layouts based on a good HTML structure like Layout Gala is the remarkable consistency of my CSS code over the years. It has save me oodles of time.

Thanks,
Rene

Like Barry, I first tried

Dan butcher — Fri, 11 May 2007 07:36:53 -0700

Like Barry, I first tried Mambo and Joomla when I was looking for a CMS, mostly because they looked really great. I soon discovered that Drupal was better suited for what I wanted to do, but often I've lamented the lack of beautiful design models among Drupal sites. I want to see more Drupal sites that don't immediately evoke the response, "That must be a Drupal site; I can tell by the layout."

What can I say other than to

Barry Sampson — Fri, 11 May 2007 06:47:51 -0700

What can I say other than to agree wholeheartedly with you!?

A few years ago when I first started looking around for a CMS, initially I decided on Mambo over Drupal simply because it looked so much slicker. I learnt very quickly that Drupal was far superior, although it was going to take more time to make it look the part.

The programmers versus designer question is an interesting one. If I was looking for a couple of examples of open source projects with great branding I wouldn't hesitate in picking Aptana and Code Igniter. I would say that both tools are aimed at developers rather than designers, and yet they 'get it'. They understand the power of branding.

I'm sure that a better visual brand would encourage people to hang around longer, and explore the possibilities. Great visuals do engage people, no question about it.