Design4Drupal, Boston

At DrupalCon DC 2009, an unexpected event happened. While sessions centered on development, performance, business, and the Drupal community made up most of the conference’s content, Drupal designers and themers connected behind the scenes like never before. This connection started over Twitter and in small Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions. It ended with a passionate group of designers and themers taking over a room for the last two days of DrupalCon. In that room, tucked away in the back, some dreaming happened. People talked about different techniques for theming, the lack of designers in Drupal, usability features they’d like to see in Drupal 7, and much more. Angie Byron (webchick) picked their brains, plans were made to keep up the energy of change, and people started to connect with each other.

Design for Drupal dedicated events

The energy of the group started to turn to Drupal design camps. The first camp with a major design and theme presence was DrupalCamp Copenhagen in 2009, founded by Morten DK, where a third of the camp was dedicated to theming. The next camp, founded by Susan MacPhee, Design 4 Drupal, Boston 2009, was the first Drupal camp dedicated to design.

Thanks to our generous sponsors, help from individual contributors, and an army of wonderful volunteers, we are able to charge a minimal fee for Design 4 Drupal, Boston. Sponsorships are immensely appreciated, and all contributions directly fund conference operation costs.

The Design 4 Drupal Group (Groups.Drupal.org)

One of the last tasks for this group was to create a group on groups.drupal.org where this new movement could continue. That’s when the Design 4 Drupal (or D4D) group started. In the early weeks of the group, a #drupal-design channel was created on IRC, and designers and themers were taught how to use it. A videocast was put together to teach designers about CVS (a constant barrier to entry for posting themes to drupal.org). A new “needs design review” tag was also added to Drupal issues.

Since 2009 Design4Drupal, Boston has been a 3-day conference devoted to design, UX, and front-end development for Drupal websites and the business and process challenges facing Drupal teams.

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