Customising Drupal for Organisational Web-site Branding

Drupal Newletter Article - June 2006

Niche objective and Personal battle plan
As a regular and seasoned user and installer of Drupal, one begins to find new features to build on, as well as challenges that motivate skill development.

Customising Drupal Features
Having used Drupal for a long time on on a day-to-day basis, I have encountered features and obstacles that have motivated me to learn more about Drupal, and fine ways to break away from any preconception of structure without compromising the power and features that come with Drupal. The common impression that one gets after installing Drupal is that it seems to be vaguely structured and difficult to understand. To some, this non-existent or vague content structure at best is a liability, but to others (myself included), it is a valuable asset when paired with the taxonomy module.

Relatively more structured applications are easy to install and use because they only provide a very limited number of usage paths and situations, and a limited feature-set as a result. In situations where a very narrow and fixed set of features are required, simplicity is welcome. However, if one needs a Web CMS framework that can be configured and used in a variety of ways with different features and functionality in each case, then flexibility and lack of structure becomes a valuable asset.

Branding and Skinning Drupal
Let us face it, the default Bluemarine theme that comes with a standard Drupal installation is not as impressive as the the powerful engine within the Drupal core. As Dries mentioned in the Worldwide Teleconference last month, the default theme has already seen its time and should be improved/changed. Nick Lewis gives a comprehensive review of Drupal's market image in his comparison of Drupal and Mambo. The points covered in Nick's document come up from time-to-time when one has to recommend CMS infrastructure to a client. The number of informed CMS clients who have not heard of Drupal is constantly shrinking, but on occasion, I have had to evangelize and demonstrate that Drupal can be themed to reflect an existing brand; more than I have had to convince prospects about the power of Drupal. This is partly due to the fact that a vast majority of Drupal powered websites out there have not been themed and have the characteristic 'blog look'. I often joke that the Drupal community is focused on building and maintaining the core and functionality modules at the expense of making the final product look pretty, and that is a good thing. In any case, no one would want a pretty-faced, but unstable, buggy, and feature-deficient Web CMS application.

Personal Battle Plan
In one situation characteristic of the above branding skepticism, I am pleased to say that the client, FileMarshal - a leading secure file delivery software vendor recognised the flexibility, security and overall power of Drupal in comparison to the other short-listed applications (MCMS, Joomla/Mambo, Zope, Typo3, Magnolia, and Plone), and recently re-launched a fully branded Drupal powered website.

I have decided to do something about the seemingly neglected theming/branding initiative. My personal battle plan is to demonstrate to current and future Drupal prospective users that they do not have to compromise their organizational branding to benefit from the constantly growing list of Drupal features and benefits. In addition to regularly assisting others get up-to speed in installing, configuring, and using Drupal through the forums, I avail detailed reviews of any processes, walk-around solutions, tricks, and lessons that I learn and device. The steps between any generic theme and a completely branded/themed website, or creating a custom web-site brand from scratch are well thought of in the Drupal infrastructure. The objective is to build on the stability of the core application and flexible templating engines to create branded websites as impressive as the core Drupal infrastructure.