THEN & NOW ??
What happened ?
Wednesday, July 6, 2011 by neone6 | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
There was a time when people made their window blinds something like this:
Now however people are trying 2 make it look something like this:
NOT saying either is better, wrong or whatever, but...Just wondering. What happened ?
A discussion around this would be refreshing I think 
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Reply #2 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 9:38 AM
In my opinion, the huge taskbars and gaudy skins were more novelty than anything. I think now people want clean and minimal skins that can be used on a daily basis.
Reply #3 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 9:40 AM
Skin #1 is definitly my fave of those two.
The style of skin #2 has been used far too many times.
Innovate - dont imitate.
Quality over quantity.
Skin for yourself, and fock what everyone else says.
Reply #6 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 9:46 AM
Truth of the matter....
Originally, skinning was ALL about being different ... so skins REALLY were different.
These days skins WANT to be 'better' than the default...so it's all about class and detail...
Either way, quantity is NO substitute for quality ....
Reply #7 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 9:58 AM
These days skins WANT to be 'better' than the default...so it's all about class and detail...
That's the 'oldschool' view, Paul (and mine too)
These days, I feel like it's more like 'skinners want to be the best - it's all about trashing the rest'.
Reply #8 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 10:08 AM
The forbidden fruit tastes the sweetest.
Back then everything in Windows looked the same and you couldn't change much (if anything). Then these little skinning applications known only to a small elite started popping up (eFx, Chrome, WindowBlinds) and, because everything looked the same, *anything* that looked even slightly different was received with 'wows and ahhhhs'. And the more different, the better, skinners were pushing the envelope of what could be done. People would tolerate the flaws on those skins because the Wow factor made up for it.
Then Stardock made skinning mainstream, people got used to it (lost the novelty factor) and being different was not enough anymore. Now it must be usable too, and better than what you already have (Aero looks pretty good by itself, so you also have the 'good enough' factor justifying the obvious decline in interest regarding skinning and customization applications).
Reply #9 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 10:10 AM
Just noticed I said the exact same thing you did, Jafo, but in other words. Sorry for the plagiarism, lol
Reply #10 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 10:11 AM
[quote who="Island Dog" reply="2" id="2962280"]I think now people want clean and minimal skins that can be used on a daily basis.[/quote
Yup. Sometimes with the all to different ones, pieces wouldn't work quite well, or it would be difficult to read.
Personally, I really enjoy the latest and greatest that are coming up. I don't find them dull at all! And Classy is an appropriate adjective. 
Reply #11 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 10:17 AM
Jorge....and you're so right, too ...
Being a two finger typist I was just a little more succinct ...
Reply #13 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 11:22 AM
I've created both minimal and novelty skins -- sometimes I have a busy wallpaper and I want the skin to just accent it and sometimes I want the skin to the be focus and the wallpaper to just accent it. The one I'm working on right now is flashy.
I think the real change to minimal happened with the advent of Vista and continued strong with Windows 7 -- XP was just so freakin' loud and ugly people thought that's the way their operating system was suppose to look. When Microsoft went minimal, so did skinners.
Reply #15 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 1:05 PM
Plus Skinners that made extraordinary graphics and/or skins were hired by Stardock and are rarely seen anymore or they just quitted skinning. See Hippy, MikeB, Treetog, Johanne, Mormegil (man I miss his skins and icons, Apogee ist still genius), Thredz, Tech13, Dangeruss and the list goes on..
Reply #16 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 1:15 PM
Reply #17 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 2:00 PM
I miss every single person you mentioned there, Carl, but specially the two first, Mark and Mike.
Mark (hippy(goth)) more or less taught me how to skin WB over 7 years ago, plus his work was (and still is) a massive inspiration (even though I'm an "ex"-skinner)
Mark, Mike and Renato (treetog) are the cremé de la cremé of by-gone-skinning/skinners, the hardcore hard core of the original skinners, wether they will stand by it or not.
Reply #20 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 3:07 PM
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Reply #1 Wednesday, July 6, 2011 9:37 AM
People got conservative.....
Individuality became a swear word.