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DrupalCamp Colorado was a success - let's keep the party going
DrupalCamp Colorado ‘09 was the best yet! We had double the attendees (over 200), a bigger venue with better sessions, a great party and UberCamp to boot. Justin, Eric and Brad got to present in a couple different sessions. Afterward, we met with other planners and presenters to review this year’s Camp and start the planning for next year’s. We’re thrilled with DrupalCamp 09 and are really excited about what’s in store for 2010.
But there are some things we shouldn’t have to wait a whole year for. So to keep the spirit of DrupalCamp Colorado alive, we’re going to host another party.
Thursday, July 16th we’re throwing a shindig for the area Dupal community at the Aten office so we can pick up our conversations where we left them - in meatspace. We’ll provide the beer, the Wii and the AC. The upstairs patio even has a view of downtown, so you might even feel like you’re back at the DrupalCamp party.
Aten Design Group is located just a few blocks East of Downtown Denver.
When
Thursday, July 16th
Starting at 7:00 PMWhere
Aten Design Group
1629 Downing St.
Denver, CO 80218
DirectionsWhat the office looks like
Our office takes up a few floors of an old house on Downing Street, so knowing what you’re looking for will come in handy. We’ll put a sign on the door too.
Parking
Street parking on 16th should be the easiest.
Questions
If you have any questions, give me (Jon) a call at 303-830-2252, or use our contact form.
Recent Posts
Print Design for the Web
I subscribe to a number of magazines that have great content and a really solid design. Wired, ReadyMade, Paste, and Bon Appetite are the four magazines at the top of my list these days. I enjoy them for their use of typography, or their interesting use of photography as an anchor for their articles. Within the bounds of still images, the possibilities in print are virtually limitless.
But wait a minute! The web has not been left in the dust. Lately I've been feeling pretty good about the direction the web is taking in regards to design and the things that can be accomplished online. More and more, sites are embracing grids, large photography, interesting layouts, and custom typography. Here are four of my favorite websites when it comes to design and why I think they're so strong.
idsgn
idsgn is a blog about graphic design, branding, typography and sometimes video. This site uses large images and a tight grid to present topics ranging from Handmade Fonts to Michael Jackson to the latest Ritz packaging. I'm really digging the color scheme and typography (nice blockquotes!) and will definitely keep reading.
Space Collective
Click through the mesmerizing intro on this site and you'll find a wealth of posts, projects, and pictures all having to do with the "state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction today." Sounds pretty cool, huh? The site pushes the futuristic theme with a clean layout, a combination of contrasting and complimentary colors, and some great sans-serif typography.
A Brief Message
Although it's been a while since it was last updated, I've always enjoyed the short form articles featured here. 200 words or less is quite a limitation and I can't help but wonder if that helps make these articles look like they came straight out of a magazine. The use of a single illustration with content wrapped around it creates a strong presentation with more visual punch than a simple blog post.
Jason Santa Maria
If you aren't familiar with his ever-changing website, take a minute or ten and look through all the different layouts used by Jason Santa Maria. I'm particularly fond of "What the World Needs," a comic-book themed post covering Jason's dreams of becoming an illustrator before he moved on to design (my life mirrors this pretty closely). This, people, is what the web is about. Each page is expertly laid out and every typographic detail has been considered.
If every page on the web was as expertly designed as the pages of these sites, I could die a happy man. That said, it's not like all print design is perfect. We can't all be Milton Glaser.
Building websites for content
We take a content-first approach to building websites. That means that one of the first things we’ll do in a project is ask you for all of the content you plan on publishing to the web. That’s right, all of it.
What if you don’t have all of it?
Well, then we’ll want to have some really in depth discussions about what it’s going to be. Content is an incredibly important part of every project for us, here’s a few reasons why.
Where’s the beef?
Users want stuff. Whether it’s products, news, images, articles, local weather, social networking or a plethora of other things, your content is the reason people come to your website. Your content is what we’ll design for during the creative phase. It’s what we’ll build for during development. In fact, putting your users in touch with your content in a no-nonsense way will be our motivation in every step of the project. When it comes to building a website, understanding your content isn’t only a good way to start, it’s the only way.
Your content, your brand
The copy, images, video and rich media applications that you serve your users are the heart of your brand on the web. They’re how you communicate with your audience; how you build and maintain relationships that perform. The better we know your content, the better we know your organization - which helps us create a website that communicates your vision, embodies your brand, and invigorates your audience.
Everything in its place
People expect to find things in specific, sometimes arbitrary or surprising, places. Shoe polish? Look next to light bulbs. Camping gear? Try sporting goods, next to automotive.
Web content is no different. Your users expect to find content in specific places, and we need to make sure it’s there, waiting for them. A solid information architecture can mean the difference between frantic, frustrated clicking, and smooth, intuitive browsing. So how do we know your user’s browsing habits? Among other things, we ask them how they’d find your content.. This process is a critical step in building your website, and we’ll need a comprehensive list of your content to complete it.
Unique approach for unique content
Your content helps to define our development approach. Do you plan on promoting company events? We’ll need to build a calendar. How about feature staff biographies? We’ll probably want to integrate profiles with user accounts. Each type of content that you feature on your website could mean a custom tailored solution, so we’ll need to be as prepared as possible. Having access to all of your content up front assures that we build out the functionality of your website realistically, with no surprises, and in a way that fits your needs like a glove.
Details, details, details
When it comes to the front end, it’s the small things that take a website from good to great. Getting the style right on an author’s name, a publication date, an address for an event, a blockquote, etc., profoundly improves the overall readability and aesthetic of the final product. Getting familiar with these details from the get-go, that is, the specific challenges your content presents, gives us much more time to get it right, and minimizes any “crunch” leading up to the launch date.
So what does all of this mean for you? Basically, expect to deliver a whole lot of content, and to do it really early on in the project. The way we see it, we’ll both reap the rewards. You’ll get an effective, smooth process and a high performance website that you can really be proud of, and we’ll get - well - pretty much the same thing, actually.
Doing Drupal Justice
By improving the user experience, admin_menu.module and admin.module help tell clients the real story about Drupal.
Until recently, Drupal’s administrative interface has been a big hurdle, and I don’t mean limited capabilities or functionality problems. I’m talking about a presentation hurdle. Too often clients miss the power of Drupal simply because the default admin interface doesn’t effectively bring commonly-used controls to the surface, leaving first-time users underwhelmed and confused.
At Aten Design Group, we tend to prototype in Drupal early in development and get our clients engaged with the prototype as soon as it is practical. This approach provides several advantages - a shorter feedback loop, a gentler learning curve, and a transparent development process. But for many of our clients, this requires a conceptual leap past the default interface to grasp all that even the simplest Drupal prototype has to offer. We work hard to prepare clients for the leap, but things could be so much better, and thankfully there are a lot of talented folks pushing Drupal’s administrative user experience forward.
First up, admin_menu.module
The admin_menu module brings all the options below “administer” into a low-profile dropdown menu at the top of the website independent of other themes being used. In our experience, the results have been great. Clients can easily get the lay of the land by quickly drilling down through the menu tree without leaving the context of the public website.
Next, admin.module
The latest contributed admin UI project, admin.module, provides a more immersive experience based on some of the work done by Mark Boulton and Leisa Reichelt for the Drupal 7 User Experience Project. The interface utilizes a control panel-style theme with a tiered top-level menu featuring a slightly recategorized set of commonly-used administration options. Prominent icons for each menu element help illustrate and bring clarity to the wide range of options. While acting as a real-world proving ground for new ideas from the D7UX Project, admin.module also allows developers building Drupal 6 websites right now to show off Drupal’s powerful administrative tools to the uninitiated.
Like most of the community, I have high hopes that Drupal 7 will provide an even more elevated user experience for administrators, among other things. In the meantime, these two modules have taken significant steps toward a UX that demonstrates Drupal’s capabilities.
Platinum Sponsors at DrupalCamp Colorado!
We're proud to be Platinum Sponsors for this years DrupalCamp Colorado. The camp this year is shaping up to be an excellent one. It's been moved from the Denver Open Media facilities where about 90 people met last year, to the DPPA events center in downtown Denver which should have room for up to 400 attendees. In addition to regular camp activities, we'll also be joined this year by Ubercamp, as well as a media and documentation sprint.
Looking over the sessions list on drupalcampcolorado.org, it looks like this years camp is shaping up to be an exciting event. We'll see you there!
