If you're a solo website designer or part of a small team itching to build interesting projects with Drupal, this concise guide will get you started. Drupal's learning curve has thrown off many experienced designers, particularly the way it handles design challenges. This book shows you the lifecycle of a typical Drupal project, with emphasis on the early stages of site planning. Learn how to efficiently estimate and set up your own project, so you can focus on ways to make your vision a reality, rather than let project management details constantly distract you. Plan and estimate your project by discovering your client's goals and audience perceptions Discover how Drupal works under the hood, and learn basic DrupalSpeak Frame the UX design challenge through a deeper understanding of your site's intended users Get real content for your project as early as possible--before you start prototyping Choose the right modules for your project, and learn about several go-to modules Understand how to walk clients through the Drupal design and development process

Are you a solo web designer or part of a small team itching to build interesting projects with Drupal? This hands-on book provides the tools and techniques to get you going. Award-winning designer Dani Nordin guides you through site planning, teaches you how to create solid, user-centered design for the Drupal framework, and shows you tricks for using real, honest-to-goodness, developer Ninja Magick.

This book is a compilation of three short guides--"Planning Drupal Projects," "Design and Prototyping for Drupal," and "Drupal Development Tricks for Designers"--plus exclusive "director's material." If you're familiar with HTML and CSS, but struggling with Drupal's learning curve, this is the book you've been looking for.Get extra material, including an expanded Grids chapter, more recommended modules, and a Short Form Project planLearn how to work user-centered design practices into Drupal projectsChoose the right modules for your project, and discover several go-to modulesUse strategies for sketching, wireframing, and designing effective layoutsManage Drupal's markup, including code generated by the powerful Views moduleLearn how to work with Drupal on the command lineSet up your development environment and collaborate with other designers and developersLearn the basics of Git, the free open source version control system

Take your Drupal skills even further with valuable tricks for making site building truly efficient. In this concise guide--the third in a series by award-winning designer Dani Nordin--you'll learn how to set up your own development environment, quickly update your modules, and use version control to protect yourself from bonehead mistakes.

Handle repetitive tasks with ease, avoid hours of frustration, and devote more time to pushing the envelope of Drupal design--just by picking up the basics of a few developer tools. It's much more than simple coding; it's real, honest-to-goodness developer Ninja Magick. Learn basic commands and use them in Drupal on the command line Set up your local development environment, and learn ways to collaborate on code with others Download modules, themes, libraries, and more with Drush, the Drupal shell Use Git, the free version control system, and create a GitHub account Pack content types, views, and other functionality you use often into a custom module with Features

Itching to build interesting projects with Drupal, but confused by the way it handles design challenges? This concise guide helps small teams and solo website designers understand how Drupal works by demonstrating the ways it outputs content. You'll learn how to manage Drupal's output, design around it, and then turn your design into a theme.

In the second of three volumes on Drupal design, award-winning designer Dani Nordin takes you beyond basic site planning and teaches you key strategies for working with themes, layouts, and wireframes. Discover how to use Drupal to make your vision a reality, instead of getting distracted by the system's project and code management details. Learn strategies for sketching, wireframing, and designing effective layouts Break down a Drupal layout to understand its basic components Understand Drupal's theme layer, and what to look for in a base theme Work with the 960 grid system to facilitate efficient wireframing and theming Manage Drupal markup, including the code generated by the powerful Views module Use LessCSS to organize CSS and help you theme your site more efficiently