If you haven't seen Steven Wittens' latest Drupal website, go look! It's something to behold. Remember to list this one as an example when the next n00b asks "will I be able to make Drupal look nice?" Here's the background for the site on Steven's blog.

Comments

nathanwastaken’s picture

Congratulations and well done. I wish I were able to produce work of that quality. I can't understand a word of the content, but the looks are all that I am after.

Jaza’s picture

That's my guess at what the theme is called. ;-)

Steven, you are a man of many skills. How many people can claim to be super coding geeks, AND to have such amazing artistic talent? Very, very impressive! If anyone ever launches a Drupal Zen Garden, I would vote this as the first theme to be included in it.

I also admire how well the front page (and the rest of the site) degrades without CSS and/or JS.

Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh

Jeremy Epstein - GreenAsh

Brian@brianpuccio.net’s picture

Actually, taking a peek at the code, he calls it schaak, though I don't know what that means in English.

heine’s picture

Schaken = Chess
Schaak = Check
Schaakmat = Mate (Checkmate)

Very nice theme!
--
Tips for posting to the forums.
When your problem is solved, please post a follow-up to the thread you started.

Zen’s picture

Shah = King = Check
Math = Death/Finish = Mate
Shah Mat = The King is dead = Check Mate = Checkmate.

-K

kbahey’s picture

Shah = شاه is Farsi for King, also borrowed in Turkey and India over the centuries.
Mat = مات is Arabic for "died" or "dead".
--
Drupal development and customization: 2bits.com
Personal: Baheyeldin.com

--
Drupal performance tuning and optimization, hosting, development, and consulting: 2bits.com, Inc. and Twitter at: @2bits
Personal blog: Ba

webchick’s picture

...for a fun Easter egg. ;)

sepeck’s picture

Try the black queen too.

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

bertboerland’s picture

would love to see steven dancing like john travolta (or leisure suit larry). on the downside, the metaphor with the chess "play" ("speelt" in dutch) is not straight. i dont know what section goes behind a piece..

but aside this minor thingy, excellent theme with nice frontpage.

--
groets
bertb

--
groets
bert boerland

Steven’s picture

True, the frontpage implements what is often called 'mystery meat navigation', at least for the chess board. It's a typical usability no-no, but it adds a bit of exploration fun to the website which the organisers like. Given that the rest of the site has a plain-text menu, I decided to leave it in. At least there are hover-labels ;).

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

KSA213755’s picture

I thought the rope/cord/tassle thing dropping down when clicking on the black queen was pretty slick. But then I realized you can make that thing swing back and forth by moving the mouse from one side of it to the other. What a cool thing to do to add some fun to a front page.

How does a person learn to create something like that? I wouldn't know where to begin.

Steven’s picture

The tassle isn't that complicated for someone with my background. It's just a kinematic simulation of a chain of stiff springs, using Euler integration. Any dedicated first year engineering student should know how to do this ;).

Following the mouse is relatively simple DOM JS.

--
If you have a problem, please search before posting a question.

KSA213755’s picture

It may be simple for an engineer, but I've been prosecuting criminals for more than a decade, so for someone with my background, it looks pretty impressive. Plus "kinematic simulation" and "Euler integration" aren't even part of my vocabulary, let alone skill set :)

Roger

sepeck’s picture

They're not part of mine either. I'd have to Google the definitions myself. :)

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide -|- Black Mountain

-Steven Peck
---------
Test site, always start with a test site.
Drupal Best Practices Guide

sime’s picture

Don't forget:

Bloggen is hip. Bloggen is cool

supercool!

bertboerland’s picture

but is bloggen "Beta Two Dot Ooo [TM]"? Huu? Well, you see. Blogging is soooo 2005.

--
groets
bertb

--
groets
bert boerland

pb8’s picture

That was nothing.

What do you think about my site :

http://phoohb.shellkonto.se
(thats phoohb, and not n00b)

bertboerland’s picture

and nice site, but not up to leuvenspeelt quality

--
groets
bertb

--
groets
bert boerland

pb8’s picture

I tampered with almost all modules I use (most layout changes though).