[development] New Themes for New Drupal

[Angela Byron]

On 29-Aug-06, at 1:17 PM, Trae McCombs wrote:

> The biggest problem here is, a bunch of coders who all of a sudden
> have a supposed "design sense".  As long as coders are the ones who
> approve themes into core, and other coders all chime in with what they
> think is good, then the end result will continuously be less than
> stellar.
>
> Coders code.
>
> Designers Design.
>
> And it's a very rare thing when the two meet.
>
> Of course, I'm just a designer, so...  "What do I know?"[tm]
>
> I'll shut up now.

As a designer, I think you know quite a bit on the subject. ;)

However, comments like "less than stellar" and "aren't particularly  
good visually" and "aren't very sexy" and stuff don't really help.  
They allude vaguely to a problem but offer no recourse for how to  
address it, or even how to identify where to start addressing it.

On the other hand, what would help A LOT is if someone with a "design  
eye" would point out specific places in the themes where there are  
problems and, where possible, suggest alternatives (people have been  
doing this with the Zen Beach colour scheme, which is great).  
Alternatively, even if you as a designer don't have time to do a  
theme yourself, you can help by pointing out a look and feel of  
another website or something that would qualify as "sexy," or  
specific elements we can try and incorporate into the design to use  
as inspiration.

I think we all can universally agree that bluemarine is out-dated and  
needs to be changed. What we as coders need are constructive and  
moreover *actionable* criticism/comments so we can make this happen.

-Angie