[consulting] Drupal Designs

[Evan Leibovitch]

sime wrote:
> To cloak Drupal you would:
> -- retheme css classes and id names (eg. class="clear-block block 
> block-user"> is a dead giveaway)
> -- alias css includes (or css aggregated file)
> -- alias drupal.js and jquery.js paths.
>   
You're missing the point! Consider the subject of this thread.

The talk about "cloaking Drupal" is not to hide its technical 
identification, but rather the fact that most Drupal sites -- even ones 
with plenty of custom theme work done to them -- have a uniformly bland, 
geeky look to them. . What is perfectly suitable to a personal or 
community site won't work in business, where eye candy _does_ often 
matter as clients strive to distinguish themselves from their competitors.

I brought a seasoned web designer -- one who has done very well for 
himself in creating some extremely eye-catching sites, and is a skilled 
Flash and Photoshop jockey -- over to the gallery of Drupal themes at 
d.o. He burst out in laughter. I think the only themes considered to be 
even near creative and competent (from a design POV) were some of the 
Andreas entries, especially the commercial stuff that's not at d.o.

This designer now has a challenge in front of him to do better, to bring 
good design to a content-oriented site. The short-term goal is to have 
sites' "theme API" be the zen theme (or a slight mutation of it), and to 
do just about all site-specific design in CSS (thus splitting code and 
design as much as possible). As can be seen at the Zen Garden, you can 
do some very un-CMS looking CMSs working just in style sheets. This also 
helps from a licensing POV; since a CSS is configuration rather than 
code, it's not subject to the GPL governing its underlying theme and 
thus can be kept proprietary to the site owner.

- Evan