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From PSD to Drupal Theme Workshop

Submitted by emmajane on 7 February, 2012 - 12:34

In 2011, Acquia hosted my very popular session From PSD to Theme as a webinar. 1800 people registered. Eighteen HUNDRED people. And in one of the best response rates I've ever seen for a free webinar, over nine HUNDRED people signed on and watched the session live. An early draft of the slide deck received over twenty nine THOUSAND views on slideshare. And now? There are FOUR. 1..2..3..4..

Three New Workbooks

Submitted by emmajane on 23 December, 2011 - 17:31

Just in time for holiday reading, I've released THREE new Drupal workbooks.

Multimedia and Drupal 7
Earlier this year two of my good friends asked me to build them a web site for their band, Beckon. This workbook outlines (in great detail...over 70 pages) how I built the features you see on the site and even more features that are still in the works.

Chain of Pain: Sending new user login info

Submitted by emmajane on 30 November, 2011 - 22:20

For my new workshop I had to create 200+ accounts. It was enough that I wanted to do it programmatically, but not enough that I wanted to set up Migrate. I opted to use Feeds instead. That turned into a world of pain that went something like this:

Free Guide and Workshop Reminder

Submitted by emmajane on 23 November, 2011 - 17:43

There's a brief window between where I feel comfortable selling a product that's no longer totally up-to-date and that product becoming totally obsolete. Today I pulled the plug on my best-selling workbook Theming Drupal: A First Timer's Guide and have made it available as a free workbook: Theming Drupal 6. No subscriber wall. No hassles. No worries. No time limits. No interrupting turkey dinner or whatever else you're up to this week/end. That link will be there for you when you're ready.

Evaluating Base Themes

Submitted by emmajane on 10 November, 2011 - 11:22

It’s rare in Drupal that you need to truly build a theme from scratch. It’s also rare that you should use Bartik as the base theme for your site (unless you want to — which is okay too). My three favourite base themes are NineSixty, Zen and Fusion. I like them for different reasons and each of the three themes only when it’s appropriate.

Seeing Drupal Themes

Submitted by emmajane on 4 November, 2011 - 12:18

Unfortunately Drupal theming has developed a reputation of being a black art. It isn't. But it is something that takes a little skill and a little practice. I've created a 20ish minute video to show you how I "saw" the original design for the Domicile theme and how I converted that design into a theme.

New Workshop: Responsive Web Design for Drupal

Submitted by emmajane on 2 November, 2011 - 23:30

Earlier this week I did a private launch for a brand new workshop and now I am happy to extend the registration to you as well. Responsive Web Design for Drupal is one of the first (if not the first) workshop of its kind that teaches you how to build responsive themes for Drupal 7 sites. This workshop is for freelance web designers whose clients are begging them to create mobile sites ... and for those who are afraid they might be asked.

Steps to Building a Drupal Theme

Submitted by emmajane on 14 October, 2011 - 09:58

Continuing on from yesterday's post on Base Themes for Drupal, let's jump into the process of how I build a theme.

1. Communicate with your whole team.
If you're a team of one this is easier, but chances are you have at least a graphic designer, site builder/developer and a client on your team. It's really important to know what's most important to each of these stakeholders. Make sure you know their priorities for the finished theme.

Base Themes

Submitted by emmajane on 13 October, 2011 - 10:11

Continuing on from yesterday's post on my Theming Philosophy of building themes that are budget-appropriate, accessible and responsive, let's jump into base themes.

Yesterday Megan confessed, "I often suspect that there must be something big that I'm missing with base themes. I've just felt a lot better about my process since I stopped trying to use them."

Theming Philosophy

Submitted by emmajane on 12 October, 2011 - 09:05

In my webinar yesterday with Acquia I talked about my theming philosophy. The webinar had over 900 attendees, so there wasn't a lot of room for discussion. I thought I'd kick off a series of blog posts where we can discuss some of the topics I covered in the talk. First up: my theming philosophy.

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