[consulting] How do you find Drupal graphics designers?

Tue Nov 2 02:21:37 UTC 2010

I'm 100% with Larry on this one. The site I'm currently working on was done with 
not only mockups, but as a sub-site to a Java site. They gave (as in forced) me 
their "standard" CSS. I have spent so much time trying to make Drupal work with 
it. As time permits, I am now going back and removing their crap and moving back 
towards regular Drupal CSS.

As an example, CKEditor is set up for Drupal CSS and looked terrible with their 
CSS. We wasted probably 100 hours trying to get CKEditor to look something 
like it would when published. And that required cloning a good portion of their 
stuff into a special style sheet. Had they used normal Drupal CSS, I suspect it 
would have worked right out of the box.

In this case, the only good that came from the mockups was in getting the custom 
coding right. It was a case of a picture being worth 1000 words.

Nancy

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. -- Dr. Martin L. King, Jr.

________________________________
From: Larry Garfield <larry at garfieldtech.com>
To: A list for Drupal consultants and Drupal service/hosting providers 
<consulting at drupal.org>
Sent: Mon, November 1, 2010 8:44:21 PM
Subject: Re: [consulting] How do you find Drupal graphics designers?

I'll be honest, I've worked with Drupal for over 5 years now and I've never 
figured out why anyone bothers with hi-fi HTML mockups anymore.  I know there 
are places that do, but the actual HTML that Drupal spits out is so incredibly 
different than what you'd get if you're "designing" your HTML that I don't see 
what value it adds.  And the effort involved to change and strip down the HTML 
to be just what you want is non-small, and removes a ton of Drupal's 
flexibility.  (The design is more likely to break if you reconfigure a node 
type or tweak a View, for instance.)

I know there are people that swear by it, and I used to do a lot more HTML 
myself, but my company hasn't done hi-fi HTML mockups in years and it's been a 
huge time saver for us.  Let Drupal give us the HTML it wants, and then CSS it 
into whatever we need, adjusting HTML only where necessary.

--Larry Garfield

On Monday, November 01, 2010 12:36:56 pm Josh wrote:
> As a classically trained print graphic designer who has been working with
> HTML and CSS since 2001, I can tell you that the gap does exist. With the
> advent of HTML 5, the canvas object, and a huge amount of widely available
> fonts, the gap is closing fast.
> 
> Good news: Any great web designer can work with *most* Content Management
> Systems. Nearly all of my sites go through a static page design phase were
> we take the approved PSD and turn it into an HTML mockup with CSS files and
> Javascript. This is rigorously tested on all major browsers. This static
> design can be created by anyone with a flare for design and CSS.
> 
> The next step can be tricky, turning static designs into functional
> websites (not just functional themes) takes a pretty savvy Drupal website
> builder. For example, making a static jQuery rotator on a homepage is
> pretty easy, but in Drupal you need to think through the Content Types,
> the View, and ultimately, how the block gets created and if there are any
> arguments that need to be considered. And once this homepage rotator is
> built, tweaking the CSS to deal with the html that is output. (Though, the
> Semantic
> Views<http://drupal.org/project/semanticviews>module can help with
> this tremendously).
> 
> Shop around the big Drupal shops (any company that regularly posts to
> the Drupal
> Planet <http://drupal.org/planet>) and you'll find someone who will give
> you the time of day and a decent estimate. If you are budget conscience or
> simply want a custom theme, try the good folks at TopNotchThemes...
> 
> http://www.topnotchthemes.com/form/custom-drupal-design-theming
> 
> <http://www.topnotchthemes.com/form/custom-drupal-design-theming>Josh
> 
> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 12:37 PM, larry at garfieldtech.com <
> 
> larry at garfieldtech.com> wrote:
> > At the risk of pissing off designers on this list, I'd look for someone
> > whose resume doesn't include much print work.  Print design and web
> > design are very different animals.  It's *really* hard to be good in
> > both, but a lot of print designers think that because they are
> > (legitimately) good print designers it makes them good web designers.
> > That's no more true than me being a good PHP developer means that I
> > could be a first-rate Erlang or ML programmer my first time out.  I've
> > known some really good print designers and really good web designers,
> > but the overlap I've seen between the two is small.
> > 
> > Also, look for someone that bills themselves as an interaction designer
> > rather than graphic artist.  They're more likely to "get" the web if
> > they think in terms of interaction and workflow rather than "art".
> > 
> > *Dons flame retardant suit before the print artists find him.*
> > 
> > --Larry Garfield
> > 
> > On 11/1/10 10:46 AM, Don wrote:
> > > Too funny. Yes, I get designers that want to change the layout of each
> > 
> > page.
> > 
> > > I'm a good themer, it's bringing together an ensemble of items to make
> > > a theme that I'm oblivious to.
> > > 
> > > -Don-
> > > 
> > > On 11/1/2010 11:22 AM, Matt Chapman wrote:
> > >> Find people who have contributed themes that don't suck. Also, broaden
> > >> your search outside the Drupal community. From the design side, CMS is
> > >> CMS. Look at actual sites, not just portfolio screenshots. Hire
> > >> someone who has their own blog that they designed, so you know they
> > >> actually use a CMS regularly.
> > >> 
> > >> But practically, I face the same challenge. It seems tome that a lot
> > >> of designers still think it's 1995 in terms of user / administrator
> > >> experience, as if the site is only going to change a few timers a
> > >> year.
> > >> 
> > >> I recently had to answer a PM at a design agency with "If you want it
> > >> to look /exactly/ like the mock-up, then you can only use Lorem Ipsum
> > >> text..." He got it, but I'm not sure the designer ever did... The text
> > >> in question was from a social network feed that updated hourly.
> > >> 
> > >> All the Best,
> > >> 
> > >> Matt
> > >> 
> > >> On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 7:59 AM, Don<donald at fane.com>  wrote:
> > >>> I have a friend looking for a Drupal aware graphics designer. Finding
> > >>> someone that's aware of how a CMS works, is a good designer and is
> > >>> reliable is something that's always escaped me. Branding and impact
> > >>> as well as user interfacing are important as well.
> > >>> Any recommendations? Feel free to email me directly.
> > >>> 
> > >>> -Don-
> > >>> donald at fane.com
> > >>> 
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