-or- where is the originality?
This is a geek rant. Yes, by writing this I am totally revealing to the world that not only do I care about the subject, but that I think enough about the topic to decide to write a rant about it. So, yes, this is a geek rant, by a geek, and will probably only be relevant to other geeks. Geeks freaking rule.
It isn't any surprise that I enjoy customizing my computer. I love downloading and trying to goodies, widgets, icons, cursors and most of all visual styles. And lately I have enjoyed working on my own a bit. My fascination with OS customization really started when I stumbled across Windowblinds (back when it was early version 3.something, so I am still pretty new to the whole scene). Being able to change how my OS looks is very appealing to me, and to be honest I can't imagine just using plain old Windows or even being limited to one of the Luna themes XP came with. They just bore me.
But at the same time I don't like to limit myself to just using Windowblinds skins. As I mentioned previously I like to use Skin Studio to convert themes that are in MSStyle format to use with Windowblinds. I am not a fan of using a hacked uxtheme.dll myself, so I opt to convert. Then I can add even more goodies to my visual styles. But my use of visual styles is becoming less and less frequent.
I like to stop by Neowin on a semi-regular basis. I peruse their Completed Visual Styles section to see what is coming out. But it seems that lately all that is coming out is the same old thing. Sure, they change a color here and there, perhaps change the buttons from a box to a circle, maybe just make them lines. But they are clones and clones and clones. Someone comes up with a great idea (like Stefanka's Inspirat visual style) and you get 30 other monkeys who change a color here, make it lighter/darker, and then release it and let the MSStyle lovers over at Neowin heap the praise on them.
Guess what robots. I can do all that with the same skin in Windowblinds. And I can do even more without much effort with Skin Studio.
And when an original Windowblinds visual style comes around there the robots all jump on it with brilliant comments such as "fugly". I think the collective IQ of the whole bunch is probably lower than the measly points this article will earn. They deride the visual style for being too bulky, too busy, to big. If it isn't completely minimalistic, and limited to about 3 colors they rip it to shreds. To illustrate my point let me offer mormegil's elegant, colorful, festive Christmas Time skin. When the news regarding this Christmas suite was posted over at Neowin it instantly met with comment after comment about how it was fugly, bloated, hideous, and so on. One person even had the audacity to say that "Somebody needs to take a couple design courses!" Yet, just look at the page over at Wincustomize. It has well over 250,000 downloads. Over 250,000! And it has an average rating of 5/5 stars. But because it isn't another minimalistic Luna clone it gets shredded. The myopia displayed on that thread alone made me see red.
I love minimalistic styles myself. But not every stinking day. I like some changes, some creativity, some unique looks to my skin. I have seen visual styles that I honestly couldn't have told you what the difference was between them without doing a close, side by side comparison. Yet each one gets praise heaped upon it for being so slick, so sleek, so smooth.
I just want to see some originality. I know there are great artists making some stylish and even stunning visual styles out there. But the second you see one of their works released, be prepared to see 50 clones of the same thing. Me, I am just getting tired of seeing the same visual style, time after time. Perhaps it is the community, perhaps it is the inherent power of Windowblinds over the MSStyle format, but I just don't seem to see nearly the same degree of cloning going on with the Windowblinds skins. So thanks to all of you out there trying to break new ground, to make something a little different that will look great on my screen.
The robots? Let them stew in their own pot of mundane similarity.