Responsive Web Design for Drupal

In a recent Webinar I conducted for Acquia there were hundreds of attendees who said they needed to learn responsive Web design now. Your customers are demanding mobile-friendly sites and if you can't deliver what they want, you're afraid those clients might go elsewhere. More and more Web design shops are adding responsive designs to their portfolio and if you're feeling behind, it's time to step up and learn the skills you need. This course is being offered one of the traditionally slowest times in the Web design freelance world: the Christmas holidays. Take advantage of the slow season to spruce up your skills for 2012. UPDATE: Now available as an "at-your-own-pace" workshop OR simply the PDF guides from the class. You can purchase the right version for you at the Design to Theme shop.

This workshop teaches you how to build responsive Drupal themes. It teaches you how to cheat the learning curve and build responsive web sites faster without having to throw out everything you know. (If you are doing value-based pricing this means more profit!) This workshop builds on your existing skills, filling in the missing information and drawing the “whole picture” you need to build responsive Web sites with Drupal. It's for people who've skimmed the articles on responsive Web design but don't have the time (or the patience or the confidence in your skills) to figure out how to convert it to Drupal-speak.

This workshop makes decisions so that you don’t have to. Even through there hundreds of ways to do things when you build a Web site, this workshop teaches you one way that you can sink your teeth into. It’s a great starting point that you can build on. With three case studies you’ll grow your confidence with the core skills of the course. You will learn how to start from scratch with your own designs and how to retrofit existing designs so that you don’t need to throw out all that hard work you’ve already invested in building Drupal themes—it will also help your clients save money by making incremental upgrades to their sites instead of having to find the money to rebuild everything. You know it’s easier to sell an upgrade, or an enhancement, than it is to tell your client they’ll have to start from scratch and do a total overhaul of their site.

Who Is This Course For

This course is perfect for freelance web designers who need a little structure to learn responsive web design. You have experience building web sites but you’re overwhelmed by the thought of having to learn yet another web technology. You typically build Web sites for $5k-$50k with a very small team (typically fewer than 5 people and sometimes it's just you). You learn by doing, but don’t want to charge a client to learn how to build responsive web sites in case it goes wrong and you end up having to do loads of work for free on a site that never works (the idea of bidding on a project to “learn” a new skill actually makes you hyperventilate because of that one time where you did just that and you were thoroughly punished and almost lost your shirt).

You're definitely working in the web industry. This course is not for hobbyists who want casual information. This if for professionals who are under the gun to deliver responsive web sites now. If you’re a hobbyist, buy the 2nd edition of the book Front End Drupal when it comes out.

Benefits

This course will give you the skills you need to build new, responsive themes and retrofit old themes to be mobile-friendly. You will be able to attract new clients who are looking to attract the mobile market. Don't forget your existing clients too: you will be able to work with your current clients to upgrade their current sites to mobile-friendly designs.

This workshop is at-your-own-pace. You’re never behind. It includes step-by-step instructions that respect the time you can commit to learning the new content. (But if you’re an information junkie, don’t worry. We’ll include lots of links to some of the best information available on the Web today.)

What You'll Get

In this course you will get:

  • Step-by-step instructions showing you how to build a responsive design in Drupal 7.
  • Step-by-step instructions showing you how to retrofit a Drupal 7 theme to a responsive design.
  • Lesson checklists make sure you’ve learned the key points of each lesson. If you accidentally glossed over something, we’ll make sure you know what you need to go back and review.
  • Examples of how everything fits together in three sample projects.
  • Bite-sized lessons that are chunked into short tasks you can fit easily into your schedule.
  • Practical lessons you can apply today. This is not a comprehensive course that wastes your time telling you about how you might be able to build sites in the future when browsers have adopted some random spec.
  • Freely licensed code that you can start using immediately in your commercial Web sites.

Course Outline

There are six lessons:

  1. HTML, CSS and PHP for Drupal
  2. Building with grids and CSS grid frameworks
  3. Responsive design
  4. Case study 1: a retrofit of the theme Domicile
  5. Case study 2: responsive themes from scratch using Omega - 2 columns
  6. Case study 3: responsive themes from scratch using Fusion - multi columns

Several times a year "live" versions of this class are offered. You may also choose to enroll outside of these times and watch the prerecorded webinars.

Format

Online access: every lesson will be broken down into web pages, allowing you to ask questions right on the content. (Comments will be curated so that you don’t have to read junk at the bottom of every page.)

Workbook: every lesson will also be available as downloadable workbooks you can print or read offline.

Membership in the Responsive Web Design Guild: Share your questions with your peers. This private forum is open to discuss course-specific questions. A special “coffee house” area will be available for people who want to discuss non-course content. You won’t have to wade through irrelevant information to find answers to course content. But you’ll be able to chat with others if you want.

Lesson Checklists: Every lesson has a summary checklist that helps you navigate the content to see what you need to review before moving on.

Kickoff Webinar: Each topic will have a kickoff Webinar to give you an overview of the key concepts. If you are not attending one of the "live" sessions, you will watch a recording of the webinar.

Video Download: Each webinar will be available for download after the webinar. So it’s okay if you miss it, because the webinar will be available later. Webinar content will be based on the text-based course material so even if you can’t watch the videos, you won’t miss anything.

GPL-licensed Themes: You will build three Drupal themes as part of this workshop. Completed themes will also be available for download. You are allowed to use these themes on commercial Web sites for no extra charge.

Bonus 1: SBE Guide #1. Value $39.95. For building and theming sites “the old way”. We’ll retro fit this site for the first case study, but you can learn how it was built now.

Bonus 2: PSD to Drupal Theme. Value $11.95. Learn how to convert your designs to a Drupal theme.

Bonus 3: Pre-launch theme checklist.

Bonus 4: Reference sheets for HTML, CSS, PHP, Drupal templates, Responsive techniques, media devices and important Drupal modules.

Questions?

Get in touch via the contact form.