Theming

OpenConcept's New Look

Submitted by Jason on

RGB Creative logoIn case you haven't noticed, the OpenConcept website has had an overhaul as of late. In migrating to Drupal 7, we not only were looking to migrate from our outdated Drupal 5 website but were excited for the opportunity to design an entirely new theme. OpenConcept partnered with Rachela Brisindi, from RGB Creative (http://www.rgb-creative.com/) in order to update our logo and website design. Although Rachela was more experienced in print design, she had a strong creative vision and was interested in learning more about designing for the web.

Once the OC team had approved Rachela's logo, wireframe and full design mockup, it was time to turn the design into a fully functional, Drupal 7 theme. We were happy to take her initial creative work & run with it, producing what is now our new corporate website.

Launching Early with Drupal 7

Submitted by mgifford on

We've been very busy working on Drupal 7 enhancements for the last two years.  It's gotten really hectic around our office in the last few months so we're not able to devote the time we wanted to launch a flashy new design.  We've got a new design in the works to replace the one we set up back in early 2007 when Drupal 5 came out, but we've been prioritizing our efforts on getting to our clients sites rather than finishing up ours.  

Theming Best Practices: revamping and modernizing a company's theming mindset (for dummies)

Submitted by Everett Zufelt on

The task is simple: develop a model for creating new themes, that are slick, stunning, accessible and compliant (duh?). As a company we have strung along several different themes, adapting them as we go to meet our clients needs. We've spent time on each to make sure they were accessible and compliant, and we've been able to deliver a high-standard of "slick" and "stunning". But needless to say, in the theming world of Drupal, times have changed.

Common Look and Feel Standards in a Drupal Theme

Submitted by mgifford on

Common Look & Feel ThemeFor those in the theming world, Common Look and Feel for the Internet 2.0 (aka CLF) is the source of many hours of CSS tinkering and artistic compromise but necessary if you want to make a Government of Canada compliant website

The context of CLF is noble:

Canadians have the right to obtain information and services from Government of Canada Web sites regardless of the technologies they use. The key to effective implementation of universal accessibility lies in designing sites to serve the widest possible audience and the broadest possible range of hardware and software platforms, from adaptive technologies to emerging technologies.

Building Awareness, Community & Opportunities

Submitted by mgifford on

Drupal Camp TorontoThis past weekend I rushed down to Toronto to Drupal Camp Toronto where I was a guest presenter with Eric Squair, Make Poverty History, & Joe Murray, JMA Consulting. I also initiated a BoF (Birds of a Feather) discussion on designers and developers in Drupal. As per our participation last year, it was well worth our while to both promote, participate and sponsor the event. The event was a success due to the hard work of it's organizers. I'm totally looking forward to Montreal's Drupal Camp in October (with any luck).

How to Successfully Incorporate Designers into Theming Drupal

Submitted by mgifford on

I've had a few too many conversations with good design firms lately who understand design well, but whom I have to assume are used to working with a client base who can afford to pay quite a lot more for their Drupal themes than most non-profits are. Given the frustrations we've had working with great folks, when working on a common client's site I wanted to outline some approaches to cost effectively creating attractive themes that match the visions of the designer and client.

Taxonomy-Specific CSS

Submitted by mgifford on

This is a related post by Jeff Burnz that looks like it is more flexible and up-to-date.

This is my first entry as a member of OpenConcept. I hope I can contribute positively to the team, and I look forward to being able to contribute back to the Drupal community as well.

While working on the Ecosystem-Based Management Tools project, I was asked to implement a method to have 8 unique header images--one per section--for the custom EBMTools theme I setup. The client wanted to have specific images for each section of content, thus it made sense to match the themes to the taxonomy of the content.

Passing Langage Values to Drupal Themes

Submitted by mgifford on

I solved this problem a while ago, but didn't have the docs handy or in my blog, so decided to post this quickly here. I needed to pass along the current language along to a variable in my template, but had to define it first as phpTemplates doesn't define it by default. It's a pretty simple process if you have a handle on PHP.

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