By ArunK on

I wanted to know if anyone could help me customize the 2 column ported Kubrick theme for Drupal into a 3 column theme like it is on this site http://www.blogherald.com/ (Using WordPress). I would like a clear line showing that separates the columns/sections like it is on http://www.joystiq.com/, http://www.engadget.com/. Basically as close to these sites as possible. The logo will be on the left, and a 468x60 banner on the right. The one for Drupal is here, http://drupal.org/project/kubrick. I tried to modify it, but it didn't come out as good as I thought it would.

The upper corners don't have to be rounded like they are currently, the could be like:
http://www.joystiq.com/, http://www.engadget.com/, http://www.tuaw.com/, http://www.bloggator.com/, http://www.liewcf.com/. Any design closes to the first 4-5 sites would be great. Arial fonts used throughout the css file.

I really like the layout, color scheme of this site http://www.revenews.com/. Can you reproduce this to work with Drupal?

How much would it cost to make a copy (as close as possible, not 100%) of the themes being used on these two sites? AV Club site (http://avclub.com/content/home), & the new Onion site (http://www.theonion.com/content/)? I have a few sites that I am working on, and I would like to use some new themes on them, I will order some new ones depending on the price.

Earlier when I was planning on using Wordpress and making the the website a blog only site, I was quoted $4-500+ for some basic themes, and at one point I asked for a small modification, changing layout, some graphics etc for a Wordpress theme, and the guy wanted $300 for it. The ones I have listed here are far more complex than what I requested before. $300 to modify the Kubrick theme is not justified. I am willing to spend money just as long as I know what I am getting.

If its possible, I would like to get one good theme and use a slight variation of it for a couple of other sites., I don't want them to all be using the same exact theme, but something similar is OK with me for the moment.

Please emai me, [arun_k][at]yahoo[dot]com

Thanks.

Comments

rbrooks00’s picture

rbrooks00 commented

I'm not a theme designer but I thought I'd offer some advice with regards to pricing. If you land a good designer (competent with css, graphics, html, etc) with Drupal skills you should expect atleast a $50-$60 an hour rate.

At $300 you are looking at a bargain because you'd basically be buying 5 to 6 hours of someone's time. If they can crank out a whole modified theme in that amount of time you are doing pretty good, but I wouldn't expect it. Developing and/or modifying a theme is not a trivial exercise.

ArunK’s picture

ArunK commented

The $300 quote I was given was for a modification of the Kubrick theme, basically adding an extra column to make it similar to the sites I described. This price wasn't for a new theme. I was able to modify the WordPress version with a little work, but the Drupal version didn't come out as well.

rbrooks00’s picture

rbrooks00 commented

Understood and I wasn't suggesting that was a new theme price - that would be much higher. Again considering the market rate for good people it is going to take a few hours to do this - do the math. You have to modify the theme html, make sure it works in various browser/os combinations, rinse & repeat. Kubrick also happens to be fixed width, that makes it more difficult to do a 3 column layout.

You said you were able to do it with a little work on another theme, multiply the number of hours you spent on it X $50-$60 and that is what you should expect.

I'm not trying to give you a hard time or anything but $300 for a theme modification isn't outlandish if you do the math.

eldarin’s picture

eldarin commented

It should be possible with a very knowledgable developer, but in some countries you would be seriously underpaying the developer (by at least about half rate).

anubhav’s picture

anubhav commented

I created Bounty . If you are interested can post your comments
http://drupal.org/node/32458.

travischristopher’s picture

travischristopher commented

FYI, Just to give a little perspective, I live in San Francisco, one of if not the most expensive city in America. That being said a slight modification to a theme like moving the left sidebar so it sits on the right side of the content and fixing up some colors and css typography, or a few boxes for 300.00, seems reasonable. For a 100.00 i probably won’t bother.

As for complete custom theme designs, including custom CSS and graphics multiple .tpl.php files and overrides as called for by the design, the prices start at 1500.00, and go up from there depending on your needs. I’ll even through in some brand identity work, like fixing up a logo and selecting custom typefaces which can be included in the theme design. Optionally I can configure and setup your entire site and teach a user how to use their new site, this is an additional fee and can be based on a fix contract price or hourly.

For an advanced site like the onion using CSS grid technique, multiple sections with per page layouts start thinking in the 3 to 5K range, and that’s not including porting your content into the new system. Consider this a very very good deal. A company like Behavior (they designed the Onion) is going to charge you this just to sit down and talk to you.

cmsproducer’s picture

cmsproducer commented

I second this comment because it highlights the fact that quality design and theming work often comes at price (even not regarding the occasional cheap guru or pricey agency). My opinion is that one must look beyond what is seen in a browser and evaluate the code quality and cleanliness. I am sure that you would rather pay more for orderly code that your your future developer can understand and add-to as opposed to re-creating code blocks that were just thrown together to make them work.

I am assuming that you are demanding CSS layout only cause table-layout is cheap and everyone with a trial copy of Dreamweaver can do it, but clean XHTML/CSS themes with regard to ease of future changes are worth every cent. Here are some detailed documents on what to look for and avoid when creating themes for Drupal CMS

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iDonny Productions: Accessibility & Web Standards-based Design & Devt., CMS & Web Branding

RobinPietersen-1’s picture

RobinPietersen-1 commented

I would be happy to do the changes for $300 (50% deposit, 50% payable on completion).

I've only been working with drupal for a short while (i.e none of my sites are out of production yet) but here are a couple of links to development snapshots:
http://www.goguide.co.za/uat/
http://www.youandme.co.za/yvybe/
http://www.youandme.co.za/flavav12/

I'm a senior developer at a small agency and was responsible for the design, theming and development of the above drupal sites.

Please email me on robin@youandme.co.za if you are still interested.