Should the designer also have to know Drupal if the developer knows already?

I am working in Drupal. My friend is a designer and he does not know Drupal. If he designs in the usual way and then I convert his traditional HTML into Drupal then will tha开发者_开发问答t work? Or does he have to know Drupal also?

One of you will need to learn at least the basics of Drupal theming; however, most any design can be adapted to be a Drupal theme. I've adapted plenty of basic HTML themes, WordPress themes, Joomla themes, and others into Drupal themes.

The more experimental or cutting edge the design, the more effort it will take to make it work with Drupal. For instance, Mega Menus are not easy to implement in Drupal because of the way Drupal's menu system works.

Apart from avoiding stuff like Flash, the designer doesn't need to know a lot about Drupal. I've taken numerous designs from non-Drupal designers, and they tend to fall into two categories.

1. HTML designs. These tend to be the easiest by just turning a bog standard HTML file into a tpl file and replacing the content with print statements for Drupal regions and other bits. There can be some work needed for thing actual content, but the basics can usually be done in a couple of hours.

2. Photoshop designs. In this case the designer knows little about web design, but knows how to draw pretty pictures. As long as the designer puts everything on separate layers, these can work well. I start with the Zen theme, slice up the Photoshop file, and insert the graphics and add colours to the CSS. Generally more work than 1, but I can usually produce a basic theme in about a day.

Of course, the less the designer knows about Drupal, the more expert the developer needs to be.

Totally not. I (as the Drupal developer) have worked with someone who had CSS/HTML chops like few others ( not just wrote books on it but actually knew what he is doing :) ) he gave me HTML and I made Drupal emit that HTML.

Drupal is very flexible. If the person implementing the theme is relatively acquainted with the Drupal theming system, the designer should not need to know a great deal about Drupal. The vast majority of designs can be implemented effectively with the Drupal theming system.

It is best if he works with a starter theme such as Zen http://drupal.org/project/zen

Zen is very easy to build with for designers, and they do not need to know much about Drupal to work with it. When they are finished, they will have a theme that works with any Drupal install.

In answer to your question then, the answer is no.

I think you should give him a short run-down so he understands how Drupal works, so he can assure his designs don't 'fight' with the undelying framework. But I don't think he needs to know how it's done step by step (it wouldn't hurt though, is my guess).