Task

The Kansas City Star needed this new design for their local magazine site implemented in to the Drupal content management system.

Solution

The first step in the process was to identify the proper Drupal modules to use in order to create the layout and features that the designers had scoped. I assessed several different modules and settled on just the right combination.

The site uses a module called imagecache to create the different size's and crops of the images that are used throughout the site. In this way the admins can upload multiple images, associate them all with a story then place the lead image in the first spot and that image will then become the "thumbnail" for that story across the site. The admins don't have to worry about resizing or cropping the images themselves, all of that is taken care of by imagecache.

This site also uses a fairly complex calendar set up, using the Date API module, to make the events section extremely useful. Users can filter events by date and type. They can then find more information about the venue and see a map to its location.

Through extensive use of the views module and advanced theming techniques I was able to maintain most of the originally written html/css to allow for a high level of SEO. I also included some other modules to increase search engine visibility which has led to this site being very near the top of the list when you google the word "ink".

So far the site has seen an average 31% increase in unique pageviews so far and it seems to only be getting better as time goes on.

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