MacThemes Previews Digital Device - January 25, 2004
Joe Kohlmann came out of nowhere a few months ago, asking for help and advice for his first theme, Digital Device. Since then, his project and skills have matured to produce a totally unique theme that defies what Aqua was meant to be, and turns your mac into an old school, monochrome LCD display, similar to the iPod interface. Even more surprisingly, Joe succeeds in innovating with consistency and style. In this Insider edition, MacThemes takes a sneak peak at the upcoming theme, and interviews Joe about his experiences creating his first theme. Digital Device is planned for release on February 2nd, in time for for Unsanity/OWC Theme Contest deadline.
Release Date: February 2nd
Author: Joe Kohlmann
Joe Kohlmann came out of nowhere a few months ago, asking for help and advice for his first theme, Digital Device. Since then, his project and skills have matured to produce a totally unique theme that defies what Aqua was meant to be, and turns your mac into an old school, monochrome LCD display, similar to the iPod interface. Even more surprisingly, Joe succeeds in innovating with consistency and style.
Aesthetics
Digital Device started as a project to mimic the iTunes interface (namely the custom widgets and the LCD display), and has since turned into much more, as many theme projects tend to do. At this point, many of you may be scratching your heads, wondering what a seemingly archaic interface is doing on a shiny, futuristic Mac. My answer to you is that Digital Device matches my iMac quite well, just as the iPod's monochromatic interface meshes with its white plastic and stainless steel enclosure. I assure you that Digital Device will feel right at home when installed on your mac in one short week. (The theme will be released February 2nd, when a final version is submitted for the Unsanity/OWC theme contest.)
That having been said, Digital Device is a unique look, and executed quite well, especially for a first time themer. Not only is the theme innovative and unique, but it is also created consistently, a quality that many first themes lack. Every interface element is drawn with a simple, flat style and in three basic colors; there are no shadows, bevels or gradients here. The animations that are present in Digital Device are also simple and manage to stay pretty inconspicuous in what is a very stationary and spare skin. The overall effect is truly that of booting up your iPod, but unfortunately the experience is quite seriously marred by the custom elements that many applications use. Which brings me to usability.
Usability
Digital Device is about as flat and simple as a theme can be, and while Joe has pulled this off quite thoroughly, the effect is unfortunately often spoiled by custom elements, shadows, and icons that are impossible (at this stage) to get rid of. Colorful aqua toolbar icons look totally out of place, ruining the monochromatic look, and custom aqua elements (in Mail and Microsoft Office utilities, notably) look terrible. The completely uniqueness of this theme, with its complete flatness, is both a blessing and a curse. What could be ignored in other themes looks conspicuously garish in Digital Device, as if mocking Joe's valiant attempt at innovation. This is quite unfortunate, and while I'm sure many users will be able to ignore these problems, there will no doubt be others who find the theme unusable because of them.
Extras
While Joe has not completed Digital Device's extras at this point, a Safari toolbar set and desktops can be expected. What is definitely worth noting, however, is the customized airport menu widget that Joe included in this build. Instead of the traditional airport waves, 4 dots now represent signal strength. Even cooler was the customization I found in the labels. I found these additions to be interesting, and hope to see more of these personal touches when the final version is released February 2nd.
Overall, Digital Device is still a theme to look forward to, and one that I am sure many will find enjoyable and refreshing to use. While the theme is indeed marred by serious usability issues, credit must still be given to Joe for his detailed, innovative, consistent, and thorough theme debut. Be sure to hang around next week when the final version is sent off for the Unsanity/OWC theme contest! In the mean time, check out another take on the iPod interface: Swiz's GUiPod. And now for the interview.
MT: Digital Device is your first theme. What got you interested in themeing?
The release of ShapeShifter definitely sparked my initial desire to create my own theme. The release seemed to signify the start of a new era for Mac OS X theming, and I strongly felt that I needed to be part of that new era. The enhancements that ShapeShifter promised over the previous methods of theming also started to make me think about how themes actually came together; beyond this point, the only theme creation experience I had was looking at completed themes in ThemePark.
MT: Do you have any advice for other people interested in starting?
The most important thing that any new themer can do is to create a new theme, even if your design isn't too great, completely from scratch. It's the only way that you'll ever be able to fully understand the so-called "do's and don't" that each resource has. In addition, you'll remember these details, so you'll save yourself a lot of time on your next theme. The added bonus is the lack of mismatched Aqua elements. ;)
MT: How time consuming was it to create this theme, and will this change in (hopefully) your future themes?
Creating this theme was exceedingly strenuous in terms of creating all of the elements in the theme. The added burden of learning ThemePark and how certain theme elements worked was also time-consuming. I also had an unexpected setback with the combination of transparency masks and black that I used to create the coloring of the theme, which relied on the LCD window color. This caused the corresponding elements to look horrible on web pages and non-standard window background coloring. I then had to switch to totally opaque transparency masks and a color palette to recreate the intended look.
MT: Does Digital Device use any guiKit specific features, and would it be possible in other theme formats?
Most of the theme would be possible with the DLTA format, however, I still have some ambitious plans for text coloring that still cannot be accomplished even with ShapeShifter. To match the window widgets and other elements of the theme, I wanted a specific "cut-out" look to the push button text, as you can see in the evolution of the theme's design. However, the text color used for these elements (the control text color) also affected the text that served as a label for checkboxes and such, and since the text color was the same color as the window background, any text that wasn't on a button was invisible! That caused me to make the unfortunate decision to use a dark control text color. I also had to do the same to the tab text color because of an odd use of the tab text color in iTunes which caused the aforementioned "invisible text" problem.
MT: Do you have any themes planned for the future?
Well, I promised someone a glossy version of Digital Device... ;-) David Escamilla (Dace from MacNN forums) posted in the thread I started for my theme with a great name for it as well, "Liquid Crystal". I thought that this name would match the glossy variant of Digital Device better than the original name. Thanks, David!
Among other theme designs apart from Digital Device, I have some pretty cool ideas that I would love to bring into reality; they involve the possibility of an interpretation of the GUI from a certain beloved Nintendo GameCube title... and I'm still very open to new ideas and inspirations that I may stumble upon later, so I know what I'll be doing among other things this summer... :-)
MT: That's great to know! There's been a recent boom in theme releases and announcements. Do you see this as a sustained growth, or the result of the ongoing theme contest, or other reasons?
The recent announcement of ShapeShifter was huge for the theming community in more ways than one. I will maintain that the cost of ShapeShifter is rationalized by its potential, that's why I've invested in it.
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Comments
Posted by SoulRocka at January 26, 2004 12:15 AM | Edit | Delete
Now this theme is off the hook!
Reminds me of a Ableton Live skin. This theme is very stylish , simple looking but yet powerful with a light pastel retro feeling. ( **10 stars **). Can't wait to get it. I hope there be different colors as well.
SoulRocka
Posted by Chris McElligott at January 26, 2004 08:36 AM | Edit | Delete
Wow! Something I've been eagerly waiting for , well done Joe!
Posted by kovacs at January 26, 2004 09:02 AM | Edit | Delete
The release of SS itself is less important than the effect it has on the theming community... and this is yet another great theme that's only possible thanks to SS, You could argue that SS itself is not worth 20$ but the effect it has on the theming community certainly are. This is a well-made, simple and very stylish theme, 5 stars :-) SS is good, the artistic freedom it provides are even better...
Posted by Danny Cohen at January 26, 2004 11:06 AM | Edit | Delete
Man, this looks simplistic and would able to get people focused on work more easily
Posted by Jorge at January 26, 2004 11:45 AM | Edit | Delete
I am enthusiastic about this theme, can't wait until it's release.
Posted by Dace at January 26, 2004 02:32 PM | Edit | Delete
You're welcome Joe :)
Posted by Benjamin at January 26, 2004 06:54 PM | Edit | Delete
Joe - looks awesome man - I can't wait!
Posted by Dave Thomson at January 26, 2004 07:37 PM | Edit | Delete
I really like this theme - it works well as a modern interface but is still retro-looking. I'd certainly use it.
Posted by bluevertical at January 26, 2004 08:40 PM | Edit | Delete
Awesome. Love the simplicity and flatness. great job indeed!
Posted by sb at January 26, 2004 09:58 PM | Edit | Delete
It gets high (potentially) usability points, but I think I'd bore of it easily...however, the LIQUID version looks to be even better!
Good luck on this.
SB
Posted by wibs at January 27, 2004 06:15 AM | Edit | Delete
I'm really looking forward to trying this theme out. I don't know if I'll be able to stick with it (mainly because of the unsolvable problem of text colors), but I sense a lot of cool desktop snapshots coming.
Posted by jill at January 27, 2004 08:31 PM | Edit | Delete
This is very interesting. Though I am a neophyte on theming and this type of development. I think it is great to submit this to the competition.
Posted by Daniel Grenell at January 28, 2004 03:36 PM | Edit | Delete
wow, i'll definitely be using this theme
Posted by Brian at January 28, 2004 07:34 PM | Edit | Delete
I would love love love a grayscale version! Beautiful!
Posted by Jiminy at January 29, 2004 12:43 AM | Edit | Delete
Nice theme, nice insider article, macthemes.net is becoming quite good. keep up the quality work.
Posted by Daniel Grenell at February 3, 2004 11:45 PM | Edit | Delete
it's been released (duh)
Posted by billy at February 4, 2004 01:44 AM | Edit | Delete
Can't get ShapeShifter to recognize it... how come??
Posted by Mai at February 7, 2004 10:06 PM | Edit | Delete
I love to use the theme, but, are there any PDA icons to go with it?
Posted by H ∑ £ £ at February 8, 2004 07:55 PM | Edit | Delete
Nice theme!
Oddly enough though, it has a problem with displaying memo text in a particular digital device's application; Palm Desktop.
Posted by Gramage at February 8, 2004 10:09 PM | Edit | Delete
Must... Have... Icons...
My Dock is looking overly colorfull next to this theme.
Can anybody recomend a set that goes nice with this?
iGramage(at)rogers.com
Posted by Phillip Ryu at February 16, 2004 12:01 PM | Edit | Delete
Gramage, Digital James is apparently working on a set.
Posted by Matt Lyon at February 17, 2004 04:31 AM | Edit | Delete
so, this has been released? where can i find it?
Posted by Brett at February 18, 2004 12:56 PM | Edit | Delete
Seriously, I can't find this theme anywhere. Anyone have any idea on where to get it?
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