I need help with decisions on the “best” approach to redesigning a local government website, http://www.co.siskiyou.ca.us/ . I have an advisory group that will help select a theme, etc. But I will be responsible for actual implementation and support although I have application and server administration help. We have definitely decided to go Drupal; and I have taken a few lynda.com Drupal courses and spent many hours exploring drupal.org and looking at Drupal sites, particularly government sites. I have css and html experience, taken classes in those topics and maintain our current non-CMS site. That’s my background and here’s my dilemma!
I know I want to use a theme instead of designing one from the ground up, but which one? I have checked out many of the themes on drupal.org and also searched the Web for possibilities. I know I want something that is responsive, has a variety of navigation and color options and a considerable variety of regions. I will need some support for the development of the site using the theme so I don’t want to choose a non-supported theme. What themes should I take a closer look at? Our current site has somewhere in the neighborhood of 225 pages attached to its template so while not huge we need a robust web presence. To complicate the issue I need to have a demo of a few themes ready to share with my advisory group two weeks from now! We aren’t averse to joining something like the AT Adaptive Themes Premium Themes Club. We already have Drupal loaded on our server and have been experimenting with a Drupal site from a lynda.com course.
Any advice and comments regarding themes and our selection process will be much appreciated. I’ll likely be asking lots of questions as we move forward as designer, developer and administrator!
Thanks, Judy
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The two big responsive themes right now are AT and Omega.
I think Omega is launching a Theme Store type thing soonish, though I suspect it will be dependent on their four release.
Both are well supported.
Depending on how much customizing you are going to do... you can switch without much trouble.
There is a Government oriented distribution you might want to look at.
Thanks, I'll Check Open Public Out
Always seeking more information and will check this out--looks like a great resource. Appreciate your response. I've looked at Omega and the Adaptive Theme stuff.
There are lots of different forms of local government
We just recently launched a site for Canada's capital city using the following Drupal Distribution - https://github.com/wet-boew/wet-boew-drupal
It uses AdaptiveTheme, but has also been enhanced for managing multiple languages & accessibility. Depending on what your requirements are it might fit your needs. We posted a bit of information about it in our blog - http://openconcept.ca/blog/mgifford/drupal-wet-wxt-government-canada
But we really should blog a bit more about how it can be used for municipal sites.
Don't forget about the Drupal Group on Local Government - http://groups.drupal.org/local-government
And heck, do what you can to go to https://portland2013.drupal.org/