How premium themes have changed the economics of a Drupal build
Time: Wednesday 13th May 11:00-11:30
Room: Waterfront
Track: User Experience & Content
Premium Drupal themes have matured dramatically with companies like Dripyard now shipping production-ready component libraries, styled paragraph types, and layout-builder configurations that would have been a week of bespoke work just a years ago.
In this talk, I'll show you what these themes actually look like under the hood. We'll crack open a premium theme like NeonByte, look at how it's structured, and see what you're getting on day one — a full component library, clean pure CSS and JS with no build tools, and enough flexibility to take you to enterprise-grade output without fighting the framework. I'll walk through using one alongside Drupal Canvas to stand up a real page, and share some honest numbers from my own projects about where the time is actually going now.
I'll also touch on how AI tooling layers on top of this — Canvas AI & Context Ai — as practical ways to compress the remaining last-mile work even further.
This is applicable to all marketers, agencies, and Drupal enthusiasts, giving practical techniques you can apply immediately.
In this talk, I'll show you what these themes actually look like under the hood. We'll crack open a premium theme like NeonByte, look at how it's structured, and see what you're getting on day one — a full component library, clean pure CSS and JS with no build tools, and enough flexibility to take you to enterprise-grade output without fighting the framework. I'll walk through using one alongside Drupal Canvas to stand up a real page, and share some honest numbers from my own projects about where the time is actually going now.
I'll also touch on how AI tooling layers on top of this — Canvas AI & Context Ai — as practical ways to compress the remaining last-mile work even further.
This is applicable to all marketers, agencies, and Drupal enthusiasts, giving practical techniques you can apply immediately.
Speakers
George Bonnici-Carter
Drupal developer for the last 9 years, now building a Drupal agency here in Tāmaki Makaurau.
Born and bred Aucklander who headed to the UK after my BSc at the University of Otago and landed at Zoocha, a brilliant Drupal agency in London. Learnt the craft from the ground up - everything from enterprise architecture to government-grade security implementations. Since returning home about 5 years ago, I've been mostly contracting and working with clients like NZ Police and Lotto NZ.
These days I'm particularly focused on AI integration within Drupal and spreading the word of Drupal - is just myself at the moment, but want to grow my agency to be a beacon of Drupal in Auckland itself.
Born and bred Aucklander who headed to the UK after my BSc at the University of Otago and landed at Zoocha, a brilliant Drupal agency in London. Learnt the craft from the ground up - everything from enterprise architecture to government-grade security implementations. Since returning home about 5 years ago, I've been mostly contracting and working with clients like NZ Police and Lotto NZ.
These days I'm particularly focused on AI integration within Drupal and spreading the word of Drupal - is just myself at the moment, but want to grow my agency to be a beacon of Drupal in Auckland itself.