> The talk about "cloaking Drupal" is not to hide its technical<br>> identification, but rather the fact that most Drupal sites -- even ones<br>> with plenty of custom theme work done to them -- have a uniformly bland,
<br>> geeky look to them. . What is perfectly suitable to a personal or<br>> community site won't work in business, where eye candy _does_ often<br>> matter as clients strive to distinguish themselves from their competitors.
<br>> <br>> I brought a seasoned web designer -- one who has done very well for<br>> himself in creating some extremely eye-catching sites, and is a skilled<br>> Flash and Photoshop jockey -- over to the gallery of Drupal themes at
<br>> d.o. He burst out in laughter. I think the only themes considered to be<br>> even near creative and competent (from a design POV) were some of the<br>> Andreas entries, especially the commercial stuff that's not at
d.o.<br><br>I think that this is exactly what people usually mean when they don't want a site to look like Drupal. This is what my co-worker Chris brought up earlier in the conversation. At Image X Media our background is in design first but we are also strong advocates of Drupal as a flexible platform. Below is a sample list of some of the sites that we've designed and built out upon drupal. I don't think that any of you will look at them and think that they that geeky "Drupal" look:
<br><br><a href="http://www.gardenmatters.ca">http://www.gardenmatters.ca</a><br><a href="http://www.datawitness.com">http://www.datawitness.com</a><br><a href="http://www.fasttrackmoms.com">http://www.fasttrackmoms.com</a>
<br><a href="http://www.thewellspringfoundation.com">http://www.thewellspringfoundation.com</a><br><a href="http://www.tuscanfarmgardens.com">http://www.tuscanfarmgardens.com</a><br><a href="http://www.favoritethings.net">
http://www.favoritethings.net</a><br><a href="http://www.discover-energy.com">http://www.discover-energy.com</a><br><a href="http://www.mod-canvas.com">http://www.mod-canvas.com</a><br><br>Back to the previous discussion about non-code contributions being important, I feel that we at Image X can give back to the community by helping Drupal get rid of the "designer unfriendly" reputation that has unfairly dogged it. While I agree with Chris' original statement that making great websites
using Drupal helps the platform I'm not sure that I'd call only doing
that a contribution. I think that our contributions may primarily take the form of posting articles and tutorials on our site and contributing them to the Drupal handbook. Or maybe writing a case study, or simply making sure that contributed modules are "themable". While such contributions do not add a contributed module they could have an even greater "Community ROI" effect by helping introduce design conscious themers and developers to Drupal.
<br><br>Rick Vugteveen<br><a href="mailto:rick@imagexmedia.com">rick@imagexmedia.com</a><br>Web Developer<br><a href="http://IMAGEXMEDIA.COM">IMAGEXMEDIA.COM</a><br>Phone: 604.536.6155<br>"Designs that create success."
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