In 2017, the University of Minnesota began an ambitious project to initiate an evolving design system made up of modular components that can be combined in numerous ways to make creative and consistent University websites. A collaborative effort across departments led by University Relations, the Folwell theme is now in use across hundreds of University of Minnesota Drupal websites and continues its evolution.
This presentation will review the history of this effort, the evolution of Folwell over time, and will include a demo of some components and sites. We will walk through the development process from feature request to production release. Finally, we will discuss some of the challenges we’ve encountered, and provide a sneak peek into plans for Folwell 2.0.