The Drupal Association is pleased to announce the selection of a design partner in its Drupal.org redesign efforts. Through a competitive process, UK-based Mark Boulton Design Ltd. was selected. Their proposal stood out because of their work on Coolspotters and the upcoming Standaard.be (launching Q4 2008), their agile design approach and their highly-experienced project team including Mark Boulton as Creative Director and project lead, Leisa Reichelt as Information Architect & UX Research and Carolyn Wood as Content Strategist.

Mark writes a design-focused journal at markboulton.co.uk and has been featured in publications such as Print, The Guardian and A List Apart (Saving the Spark: Developing Creative Ideas and Whitespace). He is an active member of the Society of Typographic Designers and a regular speaker at international conferences about typography, grid systems and applied graphic design theory. Check out his 2007 SXSW talks: Web Typography Sucks (audio) with Richard Rutter and Grids are Good and How to Design with Them (audio) with Khoi Vinh.

Leisa blogs at disambiguity.com and is a regular speaker at conferences in the UK, Europe and US where she speaks about the importance of good user experience, integrating user experience in agile processes and ambient intimacy (an effect of online social tools).

Carolyn is probably best known to this community as the acquisitions editor at A List Apart. As such she is required to be well-acquainted with trends in design, communities, and a wide range of internet issues and technologies. Her specialty is jargon-free, down-to-earth, lively content that draws users in, helps them get the job done, and encourages them to explore.

Mark will be giving a keynote presentation at Drupalcon Szeged, Thursday, August 28 at 1:30 in the Acquia room.

The redesign team's progress can be tracked via the Redesign group, where we'll continue to post updates, progress reports and milestones.

Don’t just stand on the sidelines, we need you! In order to make this happen, we will need folks to get involved in the implementation of D6 and the new wishlist items for the site. Let me know if you’re interested.