Editiorial: Are skinners abandoning originality in exchange for popularity?
Thursday, March 25, 2004 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
I was doing an article today on the history of WindowBlinds skinning. And I firmly believe that the vocal "minimalistic skinsa re king" crowd have really done real harm to skinning. I say that because skin authors seem to have become so afraid of making anything that isn't "minimalistic" because not only will they not be appreciated for being creative and original, they're likely to get flamed by the "Minimastic" brigade.
Let me show you some skins from 1999 so you can see what I mean in terms of originality.
This is old but when was the last time you saw a skin that tried to look like something other than "Look, it's another generic GUI"? Or at least done reasonably well?
This is from 2000! Sure there's OS skins in here too but look at that Allend Bond skin. Or Dangeruss's skin.
This is from Shoggot. His title bar blade actually rotated (animated) when it was the active window and the blade stretched as you increased the size of the window. I can't even remember the last time someone made a good animated title bar. And it's so easy. It's just frames of animation. Some little glowing effect or SOMETHING other than the usual gradients that everyone seems fixated on.
I believe that the reason for the lack of creativity these days is because of the obsession with downloads combined with fatigue from being flamed by the critics who will look at a skin that took 2 weeks to make and shrug it off "I won't use that crap" simply because it's not Windows Luna (but red) or some skin that looks like a slightly more minimalistic version of Luna.
Here's one from DAK from Russia released FOUR years ago.
When was the last time you saw a skin that used animation this clever? This Matrix skin by Mercury was made 4 years ago.
These two skins from Dangeruss, which are going on 5 years in age, show what skinning is all about. Creative and yet outstanding quality. These are the kinds of skins WindowBlinds was made for artistic freedom to create cool and interesting looking things. Little touches like semi-transparent scrollbars (how often do you see that these days?) and captions on the title bar buttons.
Many skin authors seem to be skinning more for popularity rather than for themselves. Back before skinning was so popular, popularity wasn't an issue - there just weren't enough peopel using this stuff. But now, skinning is not just popular, but with popularity comes..well criticism. The skins you see here took real work to make. But who wants to spend weeks on a skin only to have some anonymous user slam it because they think it's "gaudy".
I wish I had the talent to create good artwork like you see here because I would create "gaudy" skins (if these are "gaudy"). I would rather create a skin that is new and different than yet another "It's very much like Luna but the title bar is slightly smaller and it has a gradient..." (not that I'm not guilty of that myself since those kinds of skins take less time and will get more downloads.
The skins you see here are available on WinCustomize.com in the WindowBlinds section. Just look at Dangeruss, Mercury, D.A.K. and Allen Bond if you, as a skin author, want to see how these skins were made or if you, as a skin user, want to try them out (of course, since they were made before XP, not all of xP will be skinned with them).
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Reply #3 Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:40 PM
I think the skinning community is sick in general.
Glad you brought it up Brad and hope it's sparks imagination in the crowd.
Reply #4 Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:41 PM
Reply #5 Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:43 PM
Reply #6 Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:48 PM
Heh I did make some of very unusual skins before. If someone looks around in here, you will find some of my very old skins. Those is pre-wincustomize, even! I submitted those to stardock site when they accepted skins then.
Reply #7 Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:59 PM
Here's to more skins of EVERY kind.
Reply #8 Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:23 PM
Reply #9 Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:26 PM
One other thing that bugs me is a great skin, that doesn't take advantage of advance features, or has little alignment bugs abound, or strange decisions by the author that make things look like he tried to fit a sphere in a cube shaped hole.
Creativity is one thing, and then there's that extra bit of polish that makes you say "Ahhhh, this is where its at
(btw, i didn't know you could do transparent scrollbars!!! That's freakin ownage baby!)
One problem i keep seeing with current custom toolbar sets (latest version of WB), is that the author left some icons out. This looks terrible when all your toolbar icons are skinned except for instance, the "mail" icon.
but i digress.
Creativity/originality should be the driving factor behind the making of a skin.
I honestly don't see how anyone could be influenced by anything else...
Reply #10 Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:28 PM
Bigger Image : http://c242.neurobeat.net/DXonW2kDark.jpg
Reply #13 Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:41 PM
Back in the day I would uses skins like these, purely because they are fun and when other people see your screen the go
But now, I use my computer as a tool, at work for example I use a CAD program called CATIA, can't really see me getting any work done using a skin such as The Matrix skin
Reply #14 Thursday, March 25, 2004 3:45 PM
easier on the eyes for everyday use
Reply #15 Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:06 PM
when you use those older, more "creative" skins quite frankly it eats up an inch or so of
my screen real-estate. I also find thaty they use up a bit more memory for all those animations.
In addition, some of the programs that I run especially at work takes advantage of screen real-estate so the more I have the better. The minimalist skins are perfect for those. Once in a while I'll change just to have some fun to the more "creative" sorts (ToonXP, velvetwaves, and a few others preferred). Furthermore not all the "more creative" skins are all that great. I find some of them distracting, and others just plain weird. I do agree though that the minimalist skins could use some more creativity including color varieties, and colors that are easier on the eyes and more professional looking for those of us that use this stuff at work.
Reply #16 Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:20 PM
Reply #17 Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:25 PM
What bores me to tears today is the fads that skins tend to go through. First we all wanted to copy the MAC (Go buy a MAC was my thought), then we got inklings of the new XP look and everyone had to go out and make their version of WindowsXP GUI. Now we are about to start the "Lets copy Longhorn" fad. There were a few actual skins that created such fads. Remember FausX in the Desktop X world. I appreciated the quality of the work done on FausX, but that was all I could find for a long time for DesktopX.
Of course, I am admittedly being hypocrital here - I haven't made a skin in a couple of years now, so who am I to complain about the ion of "free" stuff.
Reply #18 Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:39 PM
Minimalistic skins are not only easier to make, they give your desktop a more professional and high-quality appearance respectively. Being a bit too creative will very soon result in an unusable skin. This also includes some of Frogboy's above mentioned styles (eg. Matrix - too tiny title bar buttons, or Scathe 3 - hard to read window title and where are the buttons?). Most skins just hurt your eyes with their colors and/or color combinations. Including as many gimmicks as possible doesn't make a good skin - and a skin has to be good an usable if you want to share it.
I'm mostly here at WinCustomize several times a week to find a skin that _I_ want to use for a while. I, personally, want to be able to tell a titlebar text from it's background, I don't want to take out my magnifying glass to find the buttons, nor do I want to waste lots of space for window borders. What's more, too much transparency can make the whole thing unclear as well as too much animation can get on your nerves very easily.
What I absolutely agree with is the fact that too many skinners have uploaded slightly modified Luna styles. That's real crap, because it's far far away from any creativity. We'll wait and see what happens when Longhorn is out...
So don't misunderstand me, I would also like to see more creative but moderate submissions. I don't long for the old contrast- and gimmick-rich times.
Reply #19 Thursday, March 25, 2004 4:40 PM
Reply #20 Thursday, March 25, 2004 5:08 PM
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Reply #1 Thursday, March 25, 2004 2:28 PM
I can remember several years ago being totally impressed with Aquarium by Alexandrie, one that still does get featured from time to time with the help of DesktopX. I was blown away by the animation in the title bars.
Not every skin needs animation, but there is little to separate one skin from another. Except for a couple exceptions, even the skins in the GUIO have very little that makes them stand out from others.
I lack the expertise to create a skin, however I do appreciate one that both looks good and is usable.
I'm glad Frogboy has brought up some of these great skins from the past, as we need more skins that jump out at you. Skins that challenge the limits of WB. Skins that doesn't look like every other skin.
Hopefully this article spurs on the imaginative skinners to show what they can really do.