To commemorate the launch of our most recent website—Engineered Restorations, Inc. (ERI), we’d like to devote some time to singing the praises of Drupal, a free, open-source content management system platform.

First, a little about ERI: ERI is a specialty contracting company that provides restoration, repair and protection services for all types of structures. Examples of their clientele range from the manager of a multi-family development to the senior-level engineer managing a nuclear power plant.

ERI’s site redesign needed to appeal to a wide audience, enabling clients to self-educate and easily navigate throughout the site. ERI offers a multitude of services that apply to dozens of industry segments, so this presented a bit of a challenge. Enter Drupal.

Drupal allows any piece of data to have attributes and tagging mechanisms. This intelligently connects information, keeping the user moving throughout the site and educating with each click. Generally speaking, Drupal is a great fit for sites with increased complexity. The platform boasts a large community of supporters and developers—both professional and independent—so the resources available are considerable.

Proprietary CMS platforms (Sitefinity, for instance) are Microsoft-based, expensive to invest in and maintain, and developer talent is limited to folks with .NET experience and Microsoft server knowledge.

For these reasons, we’re leveraging Drupal quite a bit for complex web application development—in fact, we’re currently developing 4 additional sites with the platform. It’s become our go-to CMS for complex and/or large sites and web apps due to its extensibility, scalability and ready access to thousands of modules supported by the greater Drupal community. Another prime example of the type of site well suited for Drupal (Drupal customization, in this case) is the site we built for CNNGO.

We’re not the only Drupal enthusiasts. Many major brands and organizations use Drupal, including whitehouse.gov, The Economist, and Fast Company.

Now over to you: have you had any experiences with Drupal? If not, do you have questions about it? Let us know in the comments.

Today, we’re honored to announce that the Soleil Laurel Canyon website won the 2010 Gold Marketing OBIE award for “best website”. The OBIE awards have been taking place every year for thirty years now, and have grown to feature over 100 building, remodeling, marketing and personal achievement categories. They are the premier awards in the new home construction industry.

In 2009, Southeast Capital Partners approached us and asked us to design and develop the Soleil at Laurel Canyon website. The active adult community needed a fresh look and feel to accompany the development’s new messaging. We built the site on a WordPress blog platform, allowing non-HTML users to update the content quickly and easily without having to deploy an expensive, confusing content management system. The blog platform is searchable and quickly indexed by the major search engines. We utilized video, a custom home search module and additional features to help online home buyers find their dream community.

Soleil Laurel Canyon boasts resort style living, yet our client also wanted to evoke a lighthearted, fun feeling to show that life doesn’t stop at retirement. We used Soleil’s existing logo and print collateral for design inspiration, and to give the site a touch of playfulness, we created a flash piece that mixes phrases like “They always told you… act your age”, with images of older adults living the life they’ve always wanted.

The colors of the site are vibrant to give it an energetic feeling, while the large photos showcase the gorgeous amenities. Features like the virtual tour and “Send an Ecard” give users an interactive glimpse into the life in the community.

We’re thrilled that our partnership with Evolv and Southeast Capital Partners led to this prestigious award—this was a project that we were passionate about and that we had a lot of fun with as well.

Kirsten and I recently took a day trip up to Chattanooga, TN, to present “Designing for Non-Designers: Tips, Tricks and Techniques” for the Lookout Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America. We were welcomed by a good dose of Tennessee summer heat and Southern hospitality (including giant pieces of chocolate and vanilla cake to accompany a delicious lunch!). We’d like to give a special thanks to Kristiina Braden for her warm welcome and introductions.

The audience was an engaged and diverse group. One member had a degree in graphic design and was transitioning into a PR position. A good amount of PR professionals had experience with Adobe InDesign, and they came from varied industries, including insurance, healthcare, and the nonprofit sector.

Kirsten started out asking what everyone was working on in order to get a better sense of how to tailor her presentation. Attendees had a wide array of projects ranging from print to web. Before going into overviews of technical information, Kirsten talked about getting past a problem we all experience: creative blocks. Before starting on projects, she recommends we give ourselves time to brainstorm and sketch. Brainstorming can be play in which we create multiple designs, collage and look for inspiration in sources from designs to photos to colors we like.

The first technical topic sparked quite a few questions from the audience: Designing for print vs. designing for Web. One audience member was curious which type is best for the Web. Kirsten listed Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Times New Roman and Georgia among others as good choices. This question became a smooth transition to the next technical topic, typography.

After confessing her “love affair with typography,” Kirsten spent just the right amount of time on it, summarizing type anatomy, serifs vs. san-serifs, leading, text alignment, line length, ways type can communicate tones, and the audience’s favorite: the do’s and don’ts of decorative type. Kirsten listed four favorite fonts people tend to overuse: Rosewood, Comic Sans, Curlz, and Giddyup. She explained how these fonts actually take away from your message because they’ve become so cliché. Attendees laughed and agreed when she joked, “If someone tells you, ‘Make this friendly; use Comic Sans!’ say ‘No!’ and run away!”

At the end of the presentation, after Kirsten had just a second to taste the cake, attendees came up and thanked her for providing such practical information with appropriate detail and depth. One member found the presentation especially helpful to catch him up to speed after spending several years outside the field of PR. Other attendees said the presentation empowered them to juggle the multiple hats PR professionals now have to wear.

If you’re interested in learning more about the basics of design, click here to download a PDF of Kirsten’s complete presentation. We also welcome your comments below!

Stewdio.org is the website of Stewart Smith, a designer from NYC that has done some great work. I was particularly amused by his Browser Pong app….basically the classic computer game Pong done with browser windows. Super fun!

Ever since I read Edward Tufte’s book Envisioning Information, I have been a semi-informed fan of information design. As a computer nerd programmer, I <3 data, and as a (hack) designer, I <3 design. As such, I believe there is no better way to view data than through the filter of design. Though after getting stoked about infographics prior to my first HCI course in college, I rarely came across good examples.

Lately there seems to have been a turn in the tide. I have seen more examples of current infographics than ever before in blogs and traditional media. Maybe it’s because there are more people in the business or maybe the media is just starting to celebrate it more. Either way, it’s exciting. I recently got a copy of The Visual Miscellaneum by David Mccandless. The book features more than 200 pages of beautiful diagrams representing countless topics of collected data. Even though it has a few errors & it would be nice if it was hardbound, it’s addicting to look at. I would recommend it to anyone.

Need an infographics fix right now?
try: datavisualization.ch

Get excited about design.
Get pumped about data.
Get your learn on!

Our fun, fearless, fabulous LesNouvelles ladies got nominated for Daily Candy’s Sweetest Things 2009. Go here to vote now!

Sol Design follows Tandus at the Neocon World’s Trade Fair this year to blog all about it.

Check it out / Tandus at Neocon

Web 2.0 – It’s the look you’ve been looking for.

Sleek, shiny, straightforward. Soft, rounded edges, crisp-clear text, and a reflection so cool you get chills.

We’ve seen it popping up all over the place; it’s a trend we at Sol Design welcome so whole-heartedly that we’re going to share it with you, honoring the DIY spirit in all of us.

Here’s a really simple tutorial on making a web 2.0 style logo in Photoshop. I used a Mac, with CS2.

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We recently finished building the harmony-blog.com website. Our buddy Peter brainstormed with the owners of the blog and came up with a great idea to make the blog look like real postcards. When we got the finished design it looked amazing. Problem was, it had a few things here and there that are “impossible” for the web.

But with our turbo nerdy know-how, nothing is impossible at Sol Design. (more…)