You know it's a personal thing on what people think is cutting edge or pushing the boundaries - often, those skinning dnn who have struggled feel that getting a site to look half good after weeks of trying mistake getting it done right makes it cutting edge... it probably was for them.

I've been so busy that I've not updated my portfolio since... 2004.. yep ... three years, but I have coming up, a more controlled portfolio environment to showcase,as I have found much disappointment handing the keys over to find it's been ... well, not so well treated, but in a controlled environment, I can at the very least, display as it was handed over. 

But there is more to it than what is regarded as 'cutting edge' ... the edge is when you can take the idea of the agency, designer, client, whoever, and accurately portray it in a DNN environment. I find that is often the biggest challenge. We try to work to pixel perfect representation of the brief, whether it's a site we have to replicate faithfully from a non DNN environment and port into DNN. We do use trickery - eg.. if I can't get something to work one way we'll try another, and another, until we've exhausted our skill level and then if we can't do what is asked, we will try our best to come up with a compromise and explain why.

One of the most challenging areas, I found was the navigational challenges. Menus, how to integrate navigation to make it look less like DNN, what choices do we have to offer the client, what new menus can we experiment with, and are there ways we can extend the core DNN infrastructure to always allow an upgrade path for the client.

There are a few sites I would like to mention, but I'm bound by NDA's. I do alot of work for people that I'm simply not ever going to be able to put my name to as these people have relationships with their clients that dont' know the work has been outsourced, and that's perfectly fine by me. 

A couple of sites that I do like and can share with you are http://www.lendingcentral.com.au - this site has complex custom modules which I skinned as faithful as possible keeping the designer's ideas to the front as much as possible, and I think it's well managed and they are ever conscious of keeping the integrity of the website while updating it.

Then, I had a great time doing http://www.zinc.com.au - it was a challenge because the designers wanted to keep the fonts and styles, so we ended up using alot more flash. We have a random flash selector to rotate some of the files, which the client can add to as time changes, we embedded the movies and designed them to work within the tight, no scroll site, and while we did the initial 'flurry' it was later replaced by one that suited their vision. I like how this site goes to the sister site - click Scarab to see the effect and it does so, in a very elegant way, keeping the integrity but changing the look and feel completely. The really satisifying thing is their staff can manage the site and the designers have their vision realised.... so it's a win win for everyone.

I love working with designers. For me, I don't feel that I'm really a good graphic designer at all, I am the first to admit this, but I've got a handful of free skins that many people have downloaded, used and been inspired from. But what I do think I've got an eye for is the ability to take the vision of a designer or client and bring it to life in a DNN environment and respect the designer and use their 'cutting edge' designs to bring them to life in DNN. And alot of it comes down to how well you know the DNN framework, where the nuances lie to have to work around, what tweaks, cheats, tricks and little things you can do to get the end result.

What we really need more of are design agencies to have the same vision for DNN for their clients. What I am thrilled to say though is that we're currently working on some sites that have huge design budgets, will have huge advertising budgets and in the next few months, some more 'out there' and latest design sites becoming DNN projects.

The showcase sites on DNN are good to get ideas from but doesn't mean only the 'best' sites get on there by a long shot.

I know these are only two sites, but these were both designed by agencies, and I have some more sites coming up soon that have bigger budgets but they aren't finished yet.

Thanks for the post - I hope you got something from my own perspective.

Nina Meiers  -   - (new site coming soon)