Most Usable Visual Style Winners
Wednesday, November 1, 2006 by Zoomba | Discussion: GUI Championships News
We did better this time with the Visual Style judging, only one day late! Below are the winners for Most Usable Visual Style. The voting on these was just as close as the icon voting. Judges provided by Neowin, BetaNews, DeviantArt, Microangelo and Lockergnome. Congrats to our winners in the event. RickyXu just snagged himself a nice $200 cash prize!
Again, China dominates the event taking both 1st and 2nd place!
Check back in Friday for Most Original Visual Style winners, when we give away the EVGA GeForce 7900GT!
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Aluminium Skin by RickyXu |
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A Dreamy World by Kanes |
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Acrylic by danilloOc |
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| Honorable Mention |
Ares by MikeB314 |
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Reply #42 Thursday, November 2, 2006 1:52 AM
Danillooc should have had this gold. The skin is next to perfect in function... especially in comparison to 1st and 2nd.
The others are pretty buggy and just don't have the style.
Reply #44 Thursday, November 2, 2006 5:50 AM
I supoort Lightstar. The first place winner has many default (unskinned and recolored) luna images and should not have been eligible for any awards.
Reply #45 Thursday, November 2, 2006 6:21 AM
Btw my skin still have some bugs, and I fixed some today. If anyone find any bugs on your system pls feedback me and I will fix and perfect it asap.
You could update skin here WWW Link
Thanks
Reply #46 Thursday, November 2, 2006 7:00 AM
I was wondering,Treetog,Essoran and danilloOc would happy about this?? I mean they had paid ,hadn't they??
Reply #47 Thursday, November 2, 2006 7:15 AM
More eater eggs.
[EDIT] Removed warez links from post. I have them saved to my desktop so they don't need to be here anymore -- Zoomba
Want more? I can get them with my fingertips very quickly.
Reply #48 Thursday, November 2, 2006 7:27 AM
He point some bugs to other VisualStyle but he did't point bugs of his friend VStyler' VisualStyle Vectra.
Vectra has more bugs then others.
Lets see few of them.
When i Apply Vectra VisualStyle start from bug.
Pleaswait showing "Please wait" is over wrriten with two differents fonts. Looking very bad.
Reply #49 Thursday, November 2, 2006 7:27 AM
All Programs also showing two images.
On Taskbar very bad fonts very difficult to read.
May i post images later.
In Vectra comments few bugs also reported by others.
According to Lightstar and almost everyone no bug VisualStyle should win.
I hope in Orignal and in Best overall no bugs win.
Reply #50 Thursday, November 2, 2006 7:40 AM
You're very quick to accuse Stardock of allowing piracy. You brought this to my attention last night after I had gone home for the day. It is right now 7:30am and I'm just getting ready to head back into the office. Before any action at all is taken, we're going to have to take a close look at those forums, and the ThemeX team members. We're not about to throw them out on a whim, this will take some looking into.
You have to give us a little bit of time, during business hours, to look into this.
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And to complaints in general of letting the skins through to this point:
1. As finalists, they were selected by popular vote of the users of this site. At any point, someone could have brought it to my attention that a finalist was incomplete.
2. Our judges are certainly qualified to judge general usability. Just because you disagree with them, does not invalidate their choices. A lot of people wanted Vectra or Azenis to win Most Usable, but I'm with Brad in that while they're excellent skins, they're not the best from an objective usability standpoint. I have my own opinions on what should have won. Fact is, everyone to a large extent will disagree with the results no matter what they are.
3. The alternative to the system we have for selecting finalists and winners is to eliminate things like user voting, and only let a small handful of pre-selected people from the community determine finalists and winners. If we were to do that, we'd have an equally large number of people screaming about favoritism and the contest being rigged. So which would you rather have, a competition where you have no say, and you'd likely see better finalist results. Or would you prefer to keep your voice in the process, knowing that what you think is good, may not follow what everyone else thinks is good?
Reply #51 Thursday, November 2, 2006 7:52 AM
Reply #52 Thursday, November 2, 2006 8:29 AM
Ah....you can always tell when a GUI Olympics/Championship is on.
Guaranteed there will be a host of armchair critics and did-not-win complainants asserting the incompetence of the Judging.
Go for it, guys....have an opinion it's a [mostly] free world, afterall.
Fortunately there are those who simply appreciate the whole shebang that is a skinning contest... for the generosity of the organisers' time...the generosity of the Judges' efforts [particularly considering the quality of the submissions]...the generosity of those companies/entities providing the prizes..and last but not by any means the least....the efforts of the skinners who entered.
The contest was/is a catalyst for outstanding quality contributions to the public purse that is the skins themselves.
The GUI Championship/s do NOT deserve to be 'demonized' as corporate advertising/profiteering, but instead should be lauded/appreciated for what they are...an opportunity for the 'recipients' of these skins to actually give something to their makers.
And, [yes, I know...starting a sentence with a conjunction], as Frogboy mentioned....there is always the opportunity for ANYONE who feels the contest can be handled better by THEM to traipse off and do just that...with theirs.
Gee...if it's not a Stardock-organised contest maybe even I could enter.....
Reply #53 Thursday, November 2, 2006 8:38 AM
I appreciate the time, and hard work that the artists put into their skins. We can all have different opinions of who "should have won" all day long, but it's best to respect the judges decision and move on.
This entire contest has brought up so many new pieces of work it's amazing. I really didn't expect to see this much participation, especially in the Iconpackage category. Now I have enough icons to last me through to next year.
Hopefully some of these artists will stay and create more skins for ALL of us to enjoy. I understand people have some valid points, but I also see some bitterness here also.
Once again I appreciate the work and the contributions that were made for this contest and I hope we will see more of it in the future.
Reply #54 Thursday, November 2, 2006 9:06 AM
| FrogboyNovember 1, 2006 23:30:02Reply #31 LightStar, the judges don't read the comments. and I'm not a judge (unless one of the judges isn't able to vote). I have my opinion tastes and opinions. |
Why don't the judges read these comments? It would make mor sense if they did. Surely someone who cares reads them?
Reply #55 Thursday, November 2, 2006 9:17 AM
| Surely someone who cares reads them? |
Yes...at least one person who cares DID read them all...
...little shortarse guy wearing headphones.....
Reply #56 Thursday, November 2, 2006 9:33 AM
While I do not agree entirely with your comments, I respect them and the good intent of the GUI Competition in general. I just realy feel that the judges in these type of events should have a thorough working knowledge of SkinStudio, WB5 and an excellent knowledge of judging graphics quality, etc. before they should be considered qualified to be a judge. Or at least someone with these qualifications should go over each submission before they are allowed to be placed in the competition. Had that been done, all this discussion might have been avoided. As far as categories being vague, I feel that each category should clearly define its intent is all. The 'Most Usable' category for instance, what does that mean exactly? It should be more clearly defined, as should all the categories, with specific definitions of what makes up the judging requirements of that category.
As far as the 'WAREZ' issue, I really hope something is done about it and shame on those that support it in any way.
The GUIC is a learning process I think, it takes a lot of input to make it truly successful I believe, so please bear with all of us commenters.
Reply #57 Thursday, November 2, 2006 9:34 AM
Just so everyone knows also, I did not enter the competition at all, so I have nothing to gain by commenting other than trying to improve it for next year. At least that is my intent.
| JafoNovember 2, 2006 09:17:03Reply #55 Surely someone who cares reads them? Yes...at least one person who cares DID read them all... ...little shortarse guy wearing headphones..... |
Reply #58 Thursday, November 2, 2006 9:51 AM
Lightstar...
Actually...the number one most important criteria for being a Judge [in anything] is impartiality.
Absolutely ANY standard of experience/expertise can be used as a judging tool.....PROVIDED that same tool is used equally and fairly with ALL.
Artwork/skins/whatever can be judged by anyone at all, and in any way, as long as it is in no way self-serving.
OK...I must add....since the works are graphical in nature it'd be wise for the judges to actually be sighted....
Reply #59 Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:31 PM
I pride myself on making complete, fully skinned as bug free as i can get them themes, always fully beta tested before release. If you are having a problem with the taskbar post a screenshot and i assure you if its not something you are doing wrong and can be fixed..it will be.
Reply #60 Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:32 PM
Only because I feel that all the skinners have very high talent in creativity.
What we have been offered by the skinners are simply premium quality.
What do I have on the table?
Take it or leave it
The IconPackagers are so hard to make and take a lot of times.
Each and everyone of them have enough icons that replaced most of windows XP Icon
and may be used as well in VISTA.
The Windowblinds skins were all as best can be - Quality Released!
What can Stardock do.
Each one of the participants of the Gui Champs 2006 in the category of IconPackager and Windowblinds get one free full OD Suite 2007 regardless of how many entries they had. Stardock gets to include their work in their sofwares, examples, and all... Remember all work done using Stardock softwares are in Stardock's advantage. The more beautiful skins are being done, the more in demand stardock softwares will be.
I believe this would help keep the next Gui Champs at least as good as the 2006 Gui Champs. Everyone is trully a winner
Everyone would have a happy face
Take it or leave it
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Reply #41 Thursday, November 2, 2006 12:43 AM