The Gin Admin Theme: Facelift your Drupal administrative experience
The default Drupal administration interface looks dated in terms of modern design standards. It’s time to change that.
Gin is based on Claro and delivers an all-new admin experience for Drupal 8 & 9. Gin brings a refreshed, more modern and fully customisable experience onto the table.
A radical new design
“Is this really Drupal?” is one of the most often heard reactions I usually get when I present the Gin Admin Theme to people. A radical redesign which will delight content editors, site builders and site admins. The editorial experience is at its core of Gin’s adjustments.
A more focused editing experience
The design for the content is oriented at classic powerful editing tools which users know best like MS Word or Google Docs. The most important functions like the published state, Preview & Save are always on hand as they’re sticky at the top of the node edit form.
New navigation concept
With the introduction of a new default vertical navigation we wanted to ensure users get faster access. If your editors are already used to the horizontal toolbar in Drupal we got you covered, too.
Always on hand call-to-actions
A small but rather powerful change is the introduction of a sticky content navigation bar which helps with orientation by always showing where you are and providing you a contextual CTA.
Layers
With the introduction of “layers” the design can distinguish elements better visually. This allows surfaces to move in front which helps the eye to better focus on the important information.
A lot of customisation options
Choose from a variety of customisation options. All with the goal to personalise the experience for your (clients) brand.
Toolbar
You can choose between the new default sidebar approach, a more minimal “modern” toolbar or the “legacy” one.
Better blend in with your (clients) corporate identity
As Gin Version 1.x began as an customisation layer for Claro, Gin has all kind of customisation options to ensure a better integration with your company’s CI/CD. Choose from a preset of accent colors or use your own. You’ll also be able to use your own company logo to make it an even more personalised experience.
Darkmode
Finally there is also a Darkmode available for Drupal. If you prefer to live on the dark side of the moon like I do, this might suit you quite well. It’s currently in an Experimental state but it already supports a wide range of modules.
Note: With the upcoming Gin Permissions module it will be possible to allow different users to override Gin theme settings like accent color, toolbar style and others.
Create a seamless experience
With the optionally available Gin Login module you can make it a seamless experience for your editors/administrators from the login screen to the finish touches of the interface.
Get Gin today: https://www.drupal.org/project/gin
Learn more about Gin
If you want to learn more about Gin, there is a series of talks and information available online.
You’ll find the slides of my latest talk about Gin at DrupalGov 2020 below (video follows once available):
There is also a recent podcast from Lullabot available as well:
Sascha is a Zurich-based Designer working at Unic. He is one of the Lead Designers of the Drupal Design System & Claro and the creator of the Gin Admin Theme.
