Skinners: Free of download count restraints!

Someone might ask, why have such a contest? Websites like WinCustomize.com, Winamp.com, deviantART, etc. already have large skin or icon libraries. So what's the point of a contest?

For one thing, contests such as this one offer a way for designers to innovate. According to a recent poll on WinCustomize.com, many skin authors are finding that the primary way they feel recognized for their efforts is in the form of download counts.  This has a side effect though, increasingly, skin authors find themselves creating things that are popular to the widest audience.

As skinning has gotten more popular, more and more visual style authors and Winamp skinners have found themselves making skins that conform to a fairly tame set of user desires in order to be "popular".

But here at the GUI Olympics, recognition is not given for just making a skin that has the most mass appeal. Innovation is rewarded as well. There are events for most creative (innovative) skin. The best power user skin. The best skin that fits to a particular theme.

There are many ways in which one might create a skin that fits to a theme or is creative that would not occur to most people. Mercury's classic "Floppy" skin is over 3 years old and shows off better than most skins what is possible to do with a WB visual style.  Sure, it won't get massive downloads but it is new and innovative too.

Certainly Doreen's TV from DavidK, also years old also demonstrated how different and cool skinning could get.

Skinning on Winamp has recently come into a new era with the release of Winamp 5 and its popularity. And the GUI Olympics, coming so soon after the release of Winamp 5 provides an opportunity for skinners to show off what they can do.

Such is the case with icons as well. It's always tempting to do yet another set of "Mac-like" icons but there are other ways of doing icons as Pixelpalooza's Mac icon contest showed.

And so here we are. As hundreds of designers from around the world prepare to put their skills to the test. To create skins and icons without having to worry about download counts. No worry about whether someone's going to say "Eh, I wouldn't use it.". Because here, the challenge is to put the skinner's skills to the test. To see what they can do when freed from all constraints.

It's going to be a blast!