Drupalcon 2009 - Washington DC

Excellent progress was made at this year's US Drupalcon held in Washington D.C. from March 4 - 7; most notably, the creation of new design group aptly named "Design for Drupal".

This is a community of serious Drupalers who aim to bridge the gaps between designers, themers, and developers. Our primary deliverable contribution to the project is simple: Make Drupal look as beautiful as it functions. This is a priority for the forthcoming release of Drupal 7.

Already, the group has established a solid presence on Groups.Drupal, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr and more. We've even set up a weekly progress report conference via IRC.

Look for big things from this group soon including training videos, walkthrough tutorials, themeing and stylesheet changes in the Drupal core, and a TON of attractive new themes. We're ambitious enough to make at least a few themes that can be packaged with core to replace the older ones like "Pushbutton".

As always, the con was packed with developers from all over the world, but this occasion marked the first solid instance of an official design group that is sure to make a big impact on the community of Drupal users worldwide. I'm very excited to see where this goes!