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By Drupal Bros on
Just wanted to say hello and introduce myself quickly, as well as mention how impressed I am with the community and information contained within.
This is my second shot at getting into Drupal, but this time I am significantly more motivated than before. I believe I will be able to bring a slightly different perspective to things owing to my background, and I intend to become a solid contributor on the forums and elsewhere.
Our case is probably a little different to many of you on here but then again I'm sure we aren't the first. Basically we are a few people with loose technological skills (none of us have done programming) who have some ideas, and are sick of working for The Man (tm) in The Industry (tm). We have some Site Builders and one Themer.
The plan is to learn Drupal in our free time (heh), then get enough work so we can quit our jobs and build sites for ourselves and others. This, of course, is proving harder than we anticipated, and I would be interested in hearing from (non-technical) people who have managed to do it.
My question is: What is the standard for where the "demarcation line is" between Themer and Site Builder?
Personally I would prefer our (even less technical) Themer to spend the majority of their time in Photoshop/Illustrator, and not even have them look at CSS/HTML (at least initially) but I was wondering whether this was even viable.
Your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Comments
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sounds more like your themer is a designer or graphic artist rather than someone who can perform tasks related to themeing.
That is exactly what their
That is exactly what their background is.
I told them to take a look at these classics:
http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/create-a-killer-band-site-with-drup...
http://drupalwatchdog.com/1/1/psd-to-drupal-7-theme
But considering their skillset I'm thinking that the site builders would be better equipped to do the CSS/HTML part. Even the slicing part. Which is why I asked about the "demarcation line."
Bonus question: is anyone able to recommend a replacement for the book Front End Drupal?
Regarding the bonus question,
Regarding the bonus question, it is not clear what you are after. If this relates to the core book module, what do you consider the "Front End" and what are you looking to do different?
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/
http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0137136692
It seems this was the bible for new themers, but it seems a little dated now.
Your question about themer
Your question about themer has already been answered. I thought I would add some more general thoughts about your plans for building a Drupal business based on my experience.
You can certainly make a living in Drupal. However if you move too fast you will make mistakes which cost your clients (and possibly you) loss of money, headaches and heartaches. Having taken over maintenance of a few Drupal sites (which in a way is harder than building your own) I have seen this, as have others, even from Drupal shops who outwardly look quite impressive. So it is a question of taking on what work within your skill level and building skills gradually IMHO, starting with some free sites for friends, then very low paid for friends, and gradually you can increase your rates as you get happy customers who will recommend you.
You get up to speed and become able to offer clients good value (and avoid mistakes which cost you as well as clients money) far faster with Wordpress. However with WP there is more competition for work.
How long it takes to learn depends massively on what skills you already have. You say you are not programmers, but maybe you already have good HTML and CSS skills. As a themer this is important, and it really does take time to learn this stuff (which is not going to be covered in a Drupal theming book, it is more general web dev knowledge).
If you are serious you should definitely go to Drupal camps and meetups when you can, especially DrupalCon (next one is Portland, May, I only get to the European ones). It costs something but is great training. And you should definitely find ways to give back to the community, (beginners can do this, though it may be intimidating at first), as this does bring good 'karma'.
Digit Professionals specialising in Drupal, WordPress & CiviCRM support for publishers in non-profit and related sectors
Awesome, thanks very much
Awesome, thanks very much guys.