Since 2009 Design4Drupal, Boston has been a 3-day conference devoted to design, UX, and front-end development for Drupal websites as well as the business and process challenges facing Drupal teams. 

We were back in-person in 2023 for our 15th anniversary in July at Salem State University

Our keynote was "Design for Longevity (D4L): Service Innovation through System Thinking" with Sheng-Hung Lee.

Sheng-Hung Lee is a maker, MIT AgeLab Design Director and Ph.D. researcher, MIT xPRO course experience strategist, MIT Office of Sustainability fellow, MIT Governance Lab (MIT GOV/LAB) curriculum designer, and Board Director at IDSA.

And make sure to sign up for our newsletter to get updates on the event and to get announcements on our two remaining quarterly webinars. We continue the spirit of Design4Drupal throughout the year by providing front-end and design related content by an outstanding group of speakers.

Previous Year Archives

History

At DrupalCon DC 2009, an unexpected event happened. While sessions centered on development, performance, business and the Drupal community were making up the majority of the conference’s content, Drupal designers and themers were connecting behind the scenes like never before. This connection started over Twitter and in small Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions. It ended with a passionate group of designers and themers taking over a room for the last two days of DrupalCon. In that room, tucked away in the back, some dreaming happened. People talked about different techniques for theming, the lack of designers in Drupal, usability features they’d like to see in Drupal 7, and much, much more. Angie Byron (webchick) picked their brains, plans were made to keep up the energy of change, and people started to connect with each other.

Design for Drupal dedicated events

The energy of the group started to turn to Drupal design camps. The first camp with a major design and theme presence was DrupalCamp Copenhagen in 2009 founded by Morten DK, where a third of the camp was dedicated to theming. The next camp, founded by Susan MacPhee, Design 4 Drupal, Boston 2009, was the first Drupal camp to be entirely dedicated to design.

Thanks to our generous sponsors, help from individual contributors and an army of wonderful volunteers, we are able to charge a minimal fee for Design 4 Drupal, Boston. Sponsorships are immensely appreciated and all contributions go directly towards funding conference operation costs.

The Design 4 Drupal Group (Groups.Drupal.org)

One of the last tasks for this group was to create a group on groups.drupal.org where this new movement could keep going. That's when the Design 4 Drupal (or D4D) group started. In the early weeks of the group, a #drupal-design channel was created on IRC and designers and themers were taught how to use it. A videocast was put together to teach designers about CVS (a constant barrier to entry for posting themes to drupal.org). A new "needs design review" tag was also added to Drupal issues.