ASAP site design and development

Many times, organizations turn to Monarch to develop a web site with exceptionally tight deadlines. To meet these deadlines, Monarch uses a wide variety of techniques that we have developed out of necessity as we have developed Drupal sites over the years.

Starting with Drupal 6, Monarch has developed a standard Drupal implementation, including the most popular modules and configurations for those modules. For example, Monarch's implementation not only includes the Drupal Imagecache module, but also includes common image sizes that are often used in web site designs.

Web site theming (conceptually) is a separate layer from content. If the site does not need a customized design, Monarch has often directed customers to the variety of free and open source sites containing portfolios of Drupal themes. This can be a dangerous option. It doesn't take many modifications to eliminate the time and cost savings from using a free Drupal theme.

Although this might seem intuitively obvious, the more our clients very specifically know what they need and want from their new site, the better. Some organizations select other sites that have a look and feel they want. Some companies can actually produce comps (non-working graphic representations) of their eventual website. Comps not only provide specifications for the look and feel of a site, but they often surface features that would not be specifically identified until the site was under active development. Often, as the first step of the entire web development process, Monarch will develop requirements for the site that outlines exactly what will be built into the new site.