How to Kill Bluemarine: New Core Themes for Drupal 7

conference: Drupalcon DC 2009, Washington D.C.

The current state of our Drupal 6 core themes: 75% themes that suck, 25% Garland

Drupal 6 has a new theming layer that is wonderfully flexible and cool. And, yet, the themes that come bundled with Drupal 6 are the same old, boring ones we’ve had for a very long time.

But now we have a plan! We’ve outlined the steps we need to take in order to kill Blue Marine. During this session, we’ll present the current state of our plan, outline the quick steps we’ll need to make Drupal easier to theme, and discuss how to engage the larger CSS and Design community.

Agenda

The current project plan is available on groups.drupal.org.

Building a successful general-purpose theme is actually not easy. Perhaps the biggest hurdle will be to get the IA gurus, programmers, and graphic designers all together to build it. But we certainly have the knowledge base to pull off several new, beautiful themes.

(And, no we’re not talking about a new admin theme. That’s a separate discussion.)

Goals

  • You’ll understand what needs to go into a flexible general-purpose theme.
  • You’ll learn how to contribute to the process.
  • You’ll get to meet some really good themers.
Slides