Megan Erin Miller's Blog Posts

Thoughts on Design and Agile

Megan Erin Miller — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 15:00:06 +0000

Over the past three years, I have been the sole designer with Stanford Web Services. I like to think that I’ve levelled up the rest of the team to embody user experience best practices and approaches to everything we do, though the reality is that I’ve had to wear many hats: user experience designer, content strategist, visual designer, themer… As our team has grown, this role I’ve played has grown as well, and it’s given me a perspective on how different facets of design fit best for different types of projects.

Saying Yes, Saying No: A Designer’s Balancing Act

Megan Erin Miller — Thu, 23 Apr 2015 16:00:00 +0000

As designers, in order to come up with innovative solutions, we must embrace a “yes, and” mindset. But to really get the job done, our most important weapon is the ability to say “no.” To be successful, we have to constantly find a balance between a mindset of “yes” and a mindset of “no.”

What's new in Stanford Framework theme, 7.x-3.0

Megan Erin Miller — Wed, 08 Apr 2015 18:00:50 +0000

On March 20, we released a major version update to our Stanford-branded, mobile-responsive, Drupal 7 theme, Stanford Framework (read more about the update here). This version includes several new theme options that greatly expand functionality and flexibility of the theme. In this post, I'll highlight ways you can use the new Stanford Framework to create beautiful, customized designs faster.

New releases for Stanford Drupal themes, March 2015

Megan Erin Miller — Tue, 17 Mar 2015 15:00:00 +0000

We are excited to announce the upcoming March release of our updated mobile-responsive Drupal themes:

Stanford Framework 7.x-3.0 (major version release) *
Open Framework 7.x-2.3

* Stanford-branded themes are available by request for official university group and department websites.

Rock your Resolution: Tips on self-directed learning

Megan Erin Miller — Fri, 16 Jan 2015 17:00:59 +0000

Welcome back! It's a new year, and that means you probably have some New Year's Resolutions on a sticky near your computer (I have about ten). If one of the goals on your list to learn Photoshop or how to code, then as a seasoned overachiever – I mean, self-driven, life-long learner – I've got some tips for you on how to rock your resolution.

Happy Holidays from Stanford Web Services!

Megan Erin Miller — Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:15:37 +0000

2014 has been a blast. We are so grateful to get to work with so many talented and dedicated colleagues around the university (and beyond!). We wish you happy holidays over the winter break, and we'll see you in 2015!

Introducing our new Drupal 7 theme, Stanford Light

Megan Erin Miller — Mon, 08 Sep 2014 15:44:36 +0000

We are excited to announce the release of a new mobile-responsive, Drupal 7 theme, Stanford Light, available now to all users on Stanford Sites. Stanford Light is a new, flexible theme that allows you to easily customize the look-and-feel of your site using several new theme options. In this post I'll walk you through how to customize Stanford Light on your Drupal site.

New releases for Stanford Drupal themes, September 2014

Megan Erin Miller — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:09:14 +0000

We are excited to announce the upcoming September release of our updated mobile-responsive Drupal themes:

Open Framework 7.x-2.1
Stanford Framework 7.x-2.2 *
Stanford Wilbur 7.x-2.1 *
Stanford Jordan 7.x-2.1 *
Stanford Modern 7.x-1.6 and 6.x-1.6 *
Stanford Light 7.x-1.1 (New!)
Stanford Basic 7.x-1.5 and 6.x-1.5

* Stanford-branded themes are available by request for official university group and department websites.

How I learned the hard way to create reusable classes

Megan Erin Miller — Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:00:43 +0000

Drupal is (in)famous for providing an egregious amount of class selectors to target every layer imaginable in its rendered HTML. Some superstar culprits are Field Collections, Field Groups, and complex Views. When we see so many handy, available selector classes, it's so tempting just to target them directly in your CSS. But today, I want to share a lesson I learned the hard way about why you've just gotta resist that temptation, and instead create reusable classes.

Overriding Open Framework Styles: Responsive styling

Megan Erin Miller — Mon, 19 May 2014 15:57:57 +0000

In this post, I continue my series on how to override Open Framework's default styles to get a more custom look-and-feel on your site. Last time we looked at how to override our block styles, sidebar menus, and region styles. Today I'm going to share how to test for and override responsive styles on your site.