Without a doubt there are at least two faces to any open source publishing platform. There is the elegance of the code, and then elegance in the visual design. Sometimes it’s this difference between the ease of working with the source code vs. the ease of designing a visual interface that will account for why one boutique shop will roll out websites with online-community-type features in, say, Joomla, while another will roll out websites that do more or less the same things, but in another tool, say, Drupal.

Coming up with a sharp new design for a website is one thing, and implementing it into a working website is another – this is particularly true when it comes to taking a Photoshop mock-up and splicing it up to fit the markup and code generated by open source software. And unfortunately, there is no good way to get a good feel for this other than getting your hands dirty yourself, or talking to someone else who has (and whose skill level you know and trust).

When it comes to the design aspect of open source software, not all products were created equal – some open source products are easier to design for than others.

Drupal, for example, is infamous for offering incredibly powerful programming possibilities, but sometimes to the point where designing beautiful interfaces becomes a real challenge for even the best designers. Now that being said, there are some amazing sites out there that are driven by Drupal.

The other alternative that will be available to you is to turn back to the “source” and make use of some community-created templates (for example: Drupal Themes, or WordPress Themes). This is an excellent alternative, especially if you’re really under the gun to churn out a hot-looking site pronto. This can also be an incredibly helpful way to learn more about what’s involved in customizing the designs for the open source tool.

Key Design Skills for Customizing Themes and Templates

There are a few key skills that you’ll absolutely need to have “in-house” if you’re going to tackle any design work that touches the source code:

1. Expert Knowledge of CSS

Any open source software you download worth its lick will have templates that rely heavily on CSS for its overall look and feel. Knowing how to edit someone else’s CSS can sometimes be trickier than starting from a blank slate and creating a completely fresh stylesheet. Either way, you’ll need to have someone on your team who knows their CSS.

2. Familiarity with Templating engines

By “templating engines” I’m referring to things like Smarty or the overall framework for how Drupal or WordPress pieces together what becomes the template of your site. While it would be ideal to have the in-house knowledge of the exact platform you’re using, the reality is that different platforms have their own methods for creating the overall look and feel of their sites, so you’ll be just as well off with a generalist who is able to figure out how a particular platform pieces together the programming logic, markup, and styles. Just because you know one, doesn’t mean you’ll automatically know them all. But if you get the gist of how a template engine/system works, you should be able to adapt to figure out the others.

3. Past Experience Customizing a Design

Ok, this one’s admittedly a vicious circle – how do you leverage past experience if you don’t have any? Well this is where it comes back to how the only way you’ll REALLY learn what’s involved in customizing the design of an open source platform is to get your hands dirty and start trying it.

The point here, though, is that if, for example, you already have one or two people with past experience modifying a WordPress template whereas no one has yet tackled a Drupal theme, this should really weigh in on your overall decision-making process of what tool to use. It’s nice if you have the time to learn the new tools, but if you’re pressed for time and need to roll out what you can by the deadline, go with what you know.

4. Past Experience Implementing & Modifying Extended Themes/Templates/Plugins

There are a lot of really good – and freely available – templates that others in the community have created and shared. And what you may quickly find out is that your time will be better spent taking one of these extensions of the core templates, and then making the customizations on these rather than the original default templates.

This, again, is an area where past experience will do you well – you really won’t know (and can’t appreciate) how hard or easy it will be to implement and then modify an extended theme or template until you’ve gone ahead and tried it.

Similar to how you should be selective of which plugins and modules to use, you can apply the same measures to help you be selective of the themes and templates you set up for your site – how active is the template designer? What sorts of questions are being asked by others who are using the template? Is the original template creator still using the template themselves?

These are just some thoughts, tips, suggestions. What do you think? What else would you be looking for in a designer? What would you want to know before diving into redesigning an open source template?