Most Drupaleros have had clients that send detailed design comps and say, "I want a site that looks just like this" -- but the design hasn't taken Drupal into account. That's not going to change. It's not entirely a bad thing, either. The topic of this session is how to steer those expectations bundled with the PSD into an iterative design process that stays flexible through the entire Drupal development cycle.

The session will be broken into two parts.

1) Approaching the design comp as a concept

We're going to look at a sample layout and identify some of its abstractions.

• Thinking of a layout as populated by UI components
• Anticipating areas where the design will likely change
• Dummy content that still gives away a genre

2) Strategies for a flexible theming process

An iterative design process does not have to abandon the design comp. I'm going to cover some Drupal tools and suggest a process to build a layout around your content, instead of fitting content as an after-thought.

• Choosing a base theme
• How a grid system helps with layout experimentation
• Using Skinr as a design tool

Suggested pre-requisite knowledge:

CSS and basic theming experience is recommended, but anyone who works with a design comp (project managers, sales, developers) will have plenty of background to understand this session.