Which CMS for high/complex graphic design?

Hello,

This is my first post on this forum. I already read some of the existing threads, but I thought I should ask my question directly.


About myself: I have nearly no personal experience with "Web 2.0" and my days on the net date back to HTML, CSS and tiny php scripts I belong to the "generation" which never used blogs, MySpace, etc.

However, I'm currently planning to open a portal using a CMS script.

My problem: although I have seen many wonderful CMS around the net, with loads of useful themes, mods and scripts, I'm worried about the fact that most systems I have seen so far (and the websites which use them) are restricted to standard page structures:
title on top, menu on the left and on the right, content in the middle.

I'm aware that these standards are necessary for easy navigation and mass-user friendliness - yet I'm aiming at heavy graphic design with non-standard positions of the different parts of the website.

An example would be:
- background picture: a solar system I painted
- main text and body in the centre
(inside an oval frame that overlaps with the Sun from the solar system)
- menu around the Sun
(each point of the menu is a planet from the background picture)
- interactive-stuff (comments, polls, etc.) is positioned below the Sun.

Obviously I'm not willing to do all that if it's impossible with the available CMS, but you get the idea; I want to be more free in positioning the different sections of the website and make them compatible with the background/theme I design.

What would you suggest me to use?
Do you know any websites that have adapted a CMS to high graphics?

Thank you very much!

Starwave

 

ok 29 views and no reply... is this really impossible?

 

I'll post a reply!


Give Expression Engine a look. You can do anything with the design, including having different designs for different pages. I started transferring over clients to this CMS last year and have been really happy with it. Like any script there's a learning curve, but there are tons of helpful folks on the board. There is a free basic version, and a more advanced pro version plus add-on forum board and ecommerce module.

They also have an extensive Featured Sites section showcasing different types of site using EE. It does cost money but I got to a point where I felt like it was worth it to have tech support and so many integrated features.

 

Hey thanks for that Dreamshop, that looks like a really nice CMS and i've never heard of it before.

I'm going to give it a go on my next project, i'll never use Joomla again as long as i live.. it blows. Expression Engine looks light years ahead.

 

CMS Made Simple works with pretty much any template you create (using html, css, etc.). I can be certain about your menu issue, but you might need to simply code something like that into the template no matter what cms you use, instead of having it automatically create menu items and such as you otherwise would... really not sure though, because I'm having a hard time visualizing what you're doing.