Beautification of the default UI and UX

Agreed. There's some good work going on here to address usability with marking lessons completed, bookmarked and recommended:
http://drupal.org/node/1482168#comment-5811272. There's clearly more to be done after this issue is finished. But I think this is an important place to start.

I like the concept.
Would recommend making the ladder more obviously a ladder.
And perhaps, having the Druplicon "studying" or something.

Nice, @dgoutam. A few quick reactions:

• I'd like to keep a ladder in the logo.
• Even though the site and distro say "learn", the end goal is really contributing. I think imagery like reading, books, students, etc. convey the wrong thing. It feels like it's all about the learner. When in fact, the idea is to help people learn so that they can contribute. I think better branding for us includes things like: ladder, climbing, growing, giving, participating. To learn Drupal is to contribute.
• It would be great to come up with comprehensive design, brand, color scheme, look and feel, for learndrupal.org. I'm thinking the default theme it should be a light subtheme of Bartik. Something that looks and feels recognizably Drupal AND looks really cool when you first install it. Major pieces to tie together would include: the ladder, the lessons listing, recommendations, bookmarks, users' lessons completed, and the icons for completed (checkbox / check mark), bookmarks (looks like a bookmark), and recommendations (stars). Would you be willing to take a crack at this?
• (A few people have suggested an Omega-based responsive theme. I think this is a great idea for something to be provided by contrib, or an accompanying lesson, or an optional theme for a later release . But it's not a "minimum viable product" feature.)

@dgoutam: These are nice-looking concepts so far. I'm glad you're working on this!

Something I think deserves attention in branding LearnDrupal.org is that it isn't just about learning how to use Drupal the CMS... As I understand it, it's also -- and IMHO, at least as importantly -- about learning how to navigate the community, to participate in the open source process, and, ideally & ultimately, to contribute back to core.

So, from my point of view, the identity/branding should communicate that this isn't just a site with tutorials, (as someone reading "Learn Drupal" might initially interpret,) it's about learning-by-doing, and about giving back to -- or at least becoming part of -- the community.

Disclaimer: I just learned about this project at DrupalCon and have only been involved with bits and pieces so far, so my opinion might not be well-founded. :)

@dgoutam I'd really like to organize a Skype conference call / IRC meeting to talk about the project roadmap. But I want to get some things documented first. I'll be in touch about this soon. In the meanwhile, I'm bryan.hirsch on Skype if you want to try to catch me to talk one-on-one.

I'm not sure if anyone is interested in revisiting this, but I'm moving it to the new Drupal Ladder issue queue. sreynen has also offered to help out with some of the design stuff.

Started to work on some logo drafts during sprint in Copenhagen last Sunday. (Based on above concept)

However, I'm not a real designer - so Nico will post a real good solution regarding the position where the "Ladder" is placed.

I used the Primary and Secondary Drupal colors: http://drupal.org/node/1051644 and the Ubuntu Font: http://font.ubuntu.com/ (Licence)
I did not used the Drupal™ Logo because of usage guidelines and to get a single font logo witch looks cleaner...

Also I created a slogan "step onto and learn to contribute"
Don't know if it fits exactly... but I think we need there a slogan who tells the story behind ladder in one short sentence!

at the slogan the word ladder should not be included any more ... and the "step onto" (or only "step on"? should imply the word ladder so it is clear what it means.

done some different logos and this is my final version...

a clear and simple logo was the goal...

Have I managed to?
Like it?

If I get positive response I will do an own treat in which it's only about the logo...

I like the logo in #13 a lot! I think you're right about using the Drupal wordmark: this might be considered fair use, but I don't want to risk it.

@jack13: You sent me a link to a site where you were working on the overall theme for DrupalLadder.org. Can I share that here? I think it's looking great. I also like the tagline there: "Step on and learn to contribute."

> Can I share that here?
Of course - so, here is the link: http://drupalladder.az.ausgetrock.net/

@brock: We just applied some quick changes.

The theme is based on Omega HTML5 and responsive as well. I would say it's about 40% ready.
We try to find some hours next week to finish it soon.

Michael / Nico

Awesome, great to hear! Can I make one request? I can see from the source code that the theme is named "ladder," but that name is already taken by the ladder module. To avoid naming conflicts, can that be changed? Maybe omega_ladder or ladder_theme or something?

So, I just talked to bryanhirsch, and read http://drupal.org/drupal-media-kit, and we might be OK using the Drupal wordmark…which I'm leaning toward, because it is quite distinctive, though I do understand the concern about using a single font. I think that using the official version gives it a little more credibility and makes it look less like a fly-by-night operation trying to make a buck of Drupal, you know?

That said, they have usage guidelines on that media kit page, noting that there must be a certain amount of empty space all the way around it. I think that's OK: the space between "Drupal" and "Ladder" simply needs to be wider than the amount of space they specify.

So: with that in mind, I'm leaning toward the last one from #12.

Hi there!

So...
It took me a couple of new attempts but now there are some more logo designs and thinkings.

I have testet and created some new letters the double DD looks really to bold in uppercase so I made an own D also the E is new ;)

Also therer are a bunch of tests

my outcome are some "final logos" which also respect the Drupal (tm) requirements.

also I have played with an Icon/logo

what do you think?

I think these are awesome Grienauer. Thanks. These are my favorite:
https://www.evernote.com/shard/s31/sh/ab10502f-1a81-4ef2-b7c6-921b50b97d...

Can you put the logo next to the text are reupload? Then I'll throw it up on drupalladder.org.

@bryanhirsch: the icon and the "drupal TM Ladder" logo could not stnad side by side because the E element would repeat...

...anyway...

I was not satisfied with the logo and have rebuilt it again...

• Aligned with the Drupal logo font thickness
• Reduced width of the D
• Transformed the Letter A

Now it looks much more homogeneous and balanced, and I think better visualize what it is

I attached a few design work in progress and below the "final" logos, if they are ok I finalize and upload finished versions of them!

I think I like it!
Hope you like it too :)

logo looks cool. I just don't understand the meaning of the small curve in the end of R letter.
And you can make the ladder inside the drop a bit bigger :)
Grienauer++

I would like to help in theming part.

@oresh: agree! :)

@Grienauer, These are awesome! I love your latest ones the best!

@jack13, I know you were working on a theme here, http://drupalladder.az.ausgetrock.net/. Are you still working on this and/or thinking about incorporating Grienauer's work?

How do you two want to proceed? Maybe we should move final stages of development to dev.drupalladder.org?

If you email me through my d.o contact form or tell me your username on drupalladder.org, I'll go ahead and make you accounts. Is there a theme or anything I should add to the dev repo?

Status Update:

Just realeased http://ng-drupal.org/ which is based on http://drupalladder.az.ausgetrock.net theme.

Now started on a fresh install http://drupalladder.2.az.ausgetrock.net where http://ng-drupal.org/ is the base and applying all blue and green ladder stuff.

btw: #16: theme name changed to "step" ;-)

> @jack13, I know you were working on a theme here, http://drupalladder.az.ausgetrock.net/. Are you still working on this and/or thinking about incorporating Grienauer's work?

@Grienauer + I are colleagues, and we'll try to really finish the theme in the next days. (second attempt)

Michael

@jack13, Wow, ng-drupal.org looks great!

Are you planning to build the Drupal Ladder theme with your Angular.js base theme?

Is your Angular theme or the Drupal Ladder theme available in a sandbox or on GitHub, somewhere others can contribute? Seems like a good thing to be able to mention to people at Drupalcon Portland next week.

@bryanhirsch:

> Wow, ng-drupal.org looks great!
Thx

> Are you planning to build the Drupal Ladder theme with your Angular.js base theme?
Right.

> Is your Angular theme or the Drupal Ladder theme available in a sandbox or on GitHub, somewhere others can contribute? Seems like a good thing to be able to mention to people at Drupalcon Portland next week.
Not yet, but I thought about publishing it as a theme named "step" which will be a Omega subtheme. First for Omega 7.x-3.x and later also for Omega 7.x-4.x.

Michael

First "step" gone!

http://drupalladder.3.az.ausgetrock.net/

Not everything finetuned yet, but enough to receive feedback.

Do not register on this site (Mail wont work), instead login as normal user: testuser/1234

I would suggest that we also think about moving stuff around. E.g. some entries from the main menu may be moved to the sidebar or footer.

A known problem is the table on http://drupalladder.3.az.ausgetrock.net/lessons. We should turn this into a responsive div table later (http://css-tricks.com/examples/ResponsiveTables/responsive.php).

Michael

Hey guys,

Its been almost an year and there isn't much updating going on here. I'm sure you guys are busy. But is there any update since the last post?

Btw, I'm applying for Migrate DrupalLadder.org to Drupal 8 @ GSoC 2014

I am planning to create a better UX and UI for Drupal Ladder. Any leads of the status of work?

We did a theme and changed the structure... and created the new logo…
Sadly the things never got included/adopted…

Where can I find the theme and structure? as well as why did the things never got included/adopted?

@thekishanraval we haven't put it in a repo because there were some things to do.
It was back in D7 times, so I would not recommend it anymore.

I think we can postpone this, because the project is not as active any more.