Since its inception, Drupal has had the (rather infamous) reputation of being the developer’s CMS. Designing a website using Drupal meant hard-coding every aspect of the appearance of your website. However, over time, and with the advent of Drupal 7, the picture has changed. Drupal too, like WordPress, now boasts of several new and beautiful themes (also called templates), and the number is increasing everyday (including ports of themes from WP).

In this article, we take a look at some of the best Drupal themes that are available from the web design and development community. We hope that you will find some new and useful templates in the showcase we’ve collected.

Free Themes

BlueMasters

BlueMasters comes with a large home page slider, a custom frontpage comprised of 4 block regions along with a footer containing 4 regions. It offers support for both 2- and 3-column layouts for pages, as well as multilevel drop down menus. This is a port of a WordPress theme.

Demo | More Info

Corporate Clean

Corporate Clean offers a simple and clean design in the form of 1- or 2-column layouts. The theme also comes with native support for jQuery slideshows and Breadcrumb display.

Demo | More Info

Journal Crunch

Journal Crunch for Drupal is a port of the popular Journal Crunch WordPress theme released by Smashing Magazine. The theme is ideal for magazine websites or blogs with lots of Featured images. The footer has 4 block regions.

Demo | More Info

Sky

Sky is a minimal theme that comes loaded with the added goodness of HTML5. It comes with 4 preset color schemes, as well as custom color layout options. Apart from 17 customizable regions (along with a 4-column footer), Sky also offers excellent support for mobile devices and integration with Google Fonts API.

Demo | More Info

Selecta

Just like Journal Crunch and Bluemasters, Selecta is a port of a WordPress theme. It is meant especially for video websites and blogs. Selecta has a 2-column layout, a total of 11 regions, and detailed CSS rules for features such as sidebar ads, comment forms, contact forms, etc. Plus, Selecta has a Javascript powered implementation for ‘Featured Videos’.

Demo | More Info

ImpreZZ

ImpreZZ is a port of the original theme released by Smashing Magazine. It is a 3-column theme meant for personal blogs. Though the theme has become bit dated by now, its unique layout with middle column navigation makes it quite popular even to this day.

Demo | More Info

Blacksea

Blacksea is a light-weight and flexible theme with a 100% tableless CSS layout. The theme features 8 custom user regions, 2 resizable sidebars, plus support for both fixed and fluid width and jQuery animations.

Demo | More Info

Magazeen Lite

Yet another theme ported from WordPress, Magazeen Lite is meant for magazine websites. It comes with JS Slideshow and a 2-column layout.

Demo | More Info

Premium Themes

Community (Regular License: $40)

As the name suggests, Community is a theme built for community websites. It offers 12 different color schemes and backgrounds, both fixed and fluid layouts, 2 jQuery sliders, as well as support for banner advertisements.

Demo | More Info

Wellfolio (Regular License: $35)

Wellfolio is a minimalist portfolio theme for Drupal 7. It comes loaded with 3 pre-defined skins, jQuery animations, built-in contact form and Google Maps support, etc. All in all, Wellfolio seems to be the ideal theme for showcasing your portfolio or projects.

Demo | More Info

Creative (Regular License: $50)

Creative is a theme that comes with unlimited color options and 16 flexible regions, along with both fixed and fluid layout options. The theme is cross-browser compatible and features jQuery powered animations.

Demo | More Info

Smooth (Regular License: $40)

Smooth comes with 8 different color schemes, flexible sidebars and 15 regions that can support any number of blocks. The theme supports Google Fonts API and over 6 different menu styles.

Demo | More Info

Simple (Regular License: $45)

Simple offers 16 flexible regions, 1- 2- or 3-column layouts, split sidebars and a jQuery powered home page slider. Just in case that doesn’t impress you, the theme also comes with 12 different color schemes and 23 background options (including 12 block theme colors).

Demo | More Info

Clean Design (Regular License: $45)

Clean Design is a minimal theme that offers a great deal of customization – you can pick from 17 accent colors, 11 link colors, 11 block title colors and 6 different backgrounds. Plus, you also have a jQuery-powered Featured slider on the home page.

Demo | More Info

City Magazine (Regular License: $40)

City Magazine is a theme meant for magazine websites and blogs. The theme offers a home page slider, animated menus, separate block themes (including a ‘typewriter style’ quick news block), and the ability to create sub-themes.

Demo | More Info

Corporate X (Regular License: $35)

Corporate X is a multi-purpose theme for Drupal 7. It offers over 27 jQuery effects, auto-resizing of images, 6 base color themes and enhanced SEO settings. The theme also offers two separate page layouts for creating a portfolio and automatic thumbnail generation for images.

Demo | More Info

AT Headliner (Club Membership: $65/year)

AT Headliner is a child theme of the free Adaptive Theme for Drupal 7. It is meant for magazine and news websites, and offers features such as custom front pages, Google Fonts API, color module support, home page slideshow, multi-column footer, etc.

Demo | More Info

Ukulele (Standard License: $60)

Interesting name, isn’t it? Ukulele is a theme with a unique color scheme, targeting sports blogs and websites. It has in-built e-commerce features (just in case you decide to sell souvenirs and T-shirts on your sports blog). It comes with 3 color schemes and 8 block regions.

Demo | More Info

AT Magazine (Club Membership: $65/year)

AT Magazine is another Premium Drupal 7 theme meant for news and content publishing websites. The theme comes with 5 color schemes, 32 regions, selectable textures, multi-column footer, and homepage slideshow. Just like most other themes by this provider, AT Magazine also is a child theme of Adaptive Theme for Drupal 7.

Demo | More Info

Shemisen (Standard License: $60)

Shemisen is a theme primarily meant for photographers. It comes with support for separate blog and gallery sections, advertisement blocks, social networking icons, etc. It offers 6 color schemes, enhanced SEO settings, and newsletter options.

Demo | More Info

Techtonic (Standard License: $70)

Techtonic is an HTML5 theme with a responsive and mobile-ready design. It has 12 grid based layouts, 8 resizable regions as well as 2 re-positionable sidebars. The theme also comes with menus enhanced by jQuery animations.

a href=”http://www.themeshark.com/demo/techtonic/”>Demo | More Info

Amoeba (Standard License: $70)

Amoeba comes with 8 custom regions, fixed and fluid width as well as a home page featured posts’ slideshow. The theme is light-weight and is ideal for news and content-centric websites.

Demo | More Info

Neptune (Standard License: $70)

Neptune offers almost the same set of features as Amoeba, but it is organized in the form of a grid. It is best suited for content publishing blogs or websites with a rather informal touch.

Demo | More Info

Barracuda (Standard License: $70)

Barracuda is a rather loud theme with 8 custom regions, jQuery animations, support for slideshow, CCK and Views Modules as well as a 100% tableless CSS layout. Furthermore, Barracuda is compatible with both Drupal 7.x and 6.x .

Demo | More Info

Starboard Magazine (Standard License: $70)

Starboard Magazine is meant for news and magazine websites. It has resizable sidebars (both left and right), fixed and fluid width options, 8 custom user regions as well as support for various custom modules.

Demo | More Info

That does it for this end. Now we turn things over to you. Do you run a Drupal-powered website? If so, which themes do you use? Feel free to share your thoughts with us in the comments!

(rb)

If you haven't seen the viral pictures of English artist Julian Beever's work, then you aren't on the web enough. Mr. Beever started as a street artist who figured out how to make his pastel chalk drawings on hard sidewalks turn into three-dimensional scenes that amazed and delighted passersby. Beever started out with traditional paintings but soon figured out how to give his work a three-dimensional twist and those pieces became a web sensation.

Turning 2D Into 3D

Beever's work soon gave way to commercial success as he was commissioned to incorporate famous brands into his street art.

Yet another viral group of art was optical illusions painted in hallways and offices. You've probably seen these too, but if you haven't or it's been a while since you marveled at these feats of planning and drafting.

Here's some cool examples without the engineering degree…

The one thing all of these pieces share is that you need to be standing in just the right place to make them work and someone had to figure out the distortions to make them all look real and line up just right.

Printing 3D Pieces

Purely by accident, I once created a 3d piece on a printed piece without even trying using the distort function in Photoshop. I was called into an important smoking break by some coworkers, and I was so excited by the prospect of renewing some much needed nicotine into my blood stream. So instead of hitting save, I hit the keyboard combination for print and ran off to our little smoking spot on the fifth level of the underground garage. Where the smokers and Morlocks were banished.

Upon my return to my cubicle, I found, as often happened, someone at the printer had done me a favor and put my printout on my keyboard. I was struck by the distortion and realized that the piece had a three-dimensional appearance. Not saying I invented this way to make 2D objects into 3D optical illusions as Beever and others had done it many years before.

I showed a couple of coworkers, who pronounced it to be "neat" and "like that guy who does the sidewalk art" and I even left it on the department worktable to see if anyone would see it as 3D. I tried incorporating it into some of our products but it just didn't fly as we were starting to work with high definition lenticular technology.

I'm sure you've stumbled upon it, too. While working on a file, surely something struck a cord in your creativity. That's often how we discover optical illusions. With a bit of manipulation in Photoshop (edit > transform > distort), a 2D print can create an unbelievable illusion.

Leo Burnett's advertising agency in São Paulo, Brazil started using the same 2D printing for Samsung to advertise their printers.

A few extra cuts and folds can yield surprising results as in these examples (turn off your computer’s sound or you’ll regret it!)…

How Can You Use This?

For print, the applications are endless. Any image that is used on a flat card can have a 3D appearance. Selling real estate? Have a house standing up on a brochure that sits on a table. Put an image, QR code or AR code on your business card so when it sits on someone's desk, you'll "stand out" among the other pieces of paper. Put one on hats, T-shirts, pants (use your imagination but don't be disgusting) and any other flat surface that is intended to sell.

With a mix of angles on billboards and posters, drivers and passersby will really take notice… and probably crash into something, but what a way to get a message across. Massive pile-ups on the highway may be a tragedy on the evening news but think of the free advertising!

For point of purchase advertising, using the same technique as Beever can have people taking notice in store aisles and parking lots. A cool scene of hell in your driveway will keep away pesky door-to-door salespeople and the neighbors.

Best of all, there are no extraordinary production costs involved aside from some extra Photoshop manipulation and a decent drop shadow.

For the web, it can be a bit more challenging. Still, any 2D surface will work as long as you figure out the angles of viewing. If you can't figure out the angles, then let web functionality work FOR you. Animated gifs using the same technique as the old stereo viewers with two images, just slightly askew so when viewed through two lenses the images came together into one 3D image. Also caused long-term cross-eyed headaches, which are now suspected to have been the major cause of the First World War.

The Stereoscope glasses. This is why my great grandparents were cross-eyed and thought I was twins. At least I got TWO birthday presents!

Unlike the other examples, that have two layers, this image is ten layers of objects. The effect is hypnotic.

Keep Looking At The Same Things In Different Ways

Every day some creative comes up with a different way of seeing the ordinary. Looking past the limitations of 2D has led to innovative insights. Take the examples here and run with them. See mistakes for what they might present. In the creative process we don't really make mistakes… we either discover ways something won't work or a way something will work on a different plane.

Using small white pegs to match the background color, placed in just the right spots, this 2D billboard is actually 3D, and uses the sun’s rays to create shadows to reveal the image for this sunscreen product.

Was it a “royal pain” to figure this one out or did the creator just pull crumpled ten pound notes from his/her pocket and notice how the ripples made the queen smile and frown?

In the End

Always remember this: When they think you’re weird because of your ideas, proudly say, “YES!” When they say you’re different, be glad you are. When they say you don’t look at things the way everyone else does, smile because you are the one who will change things by seeing the solutions… in 3D!

(rb)