Mobile Handset DesignLine Blog
Customization is everywhere
Gregory Quirk
6/29/2009 1:30 PM EDT
With no new shows on TV until the fall I have had a bit more time on my
hands lately, and was looking for a project to keep me occupied.
I was surfing the web for some BlackBerry Curve 8900 themes
for my phone and came across some really interesting ones.
And while they are great, I wanted to create my own theme...
I just didn't realize that it was going to be harder than I expected.
One that I really liked was a Spiderman theme, for which the OTA link can be found here. While I am a huge Spiderman fan the images alone would not have been enough to convince me that it would be worth keeping. What I like most about the theme is that when you scroll over an icon you get a Spiderman mask behind it, which I thought looked really neat. And second, when you scroll over an icon, like mail, new messages show up on the screen. I previously had the Zen Today theme, which was okay, but id not give me the level of detail that I find I can get with this new theme.
I found some forum information on creating a theme here and downloaded all of the software needed to try it out for myself. I took a sample theme and started playing around with it, but did not get too far into the process, although it is something that I will be going back to again to try to understand more and actually finish creating my very own theme.
What this did raise in my mind, however, was the amount of customization that is available in all of the consumer product I have. I just never really sat down and thought about how much almost everything I own is customized just for me. In gaming I have avatars that I spend far too much time creating. My cell phone has themes to make it the way I want. It is no longer just going out and picking a certain color to match your style, making it your own is part of the experience.
What is the device that you have spent the most time customizing, or have had the most fun customizing? Shout it out in the forum!
One that I really liked was a Spiderman theme, for which the OTA link can be found here. While I am a huge Spiderman fan the images alone would not have been enough to convince me that it would be worth keeping. What I like most about the theme is that when you scroll over an icon you get a Spiderman mask behind it, which I thought looked really neat. And second, when you scroll over an icon, like mail, new messages show up on the screen. I previously had the Zen Today theme, which was okay, but id not give me the level of detail that I find I can get with this new theme.
I found some forum information on creating a theme here and downloaded all of the software needed to try it out for myself. I took a sample theme and started playing around with it, but did not get too far into the process, although it is something that I will be going back to again to try to understand more and actually finish creating my very own theme.
What this did raise in my mind, however, was the amount of customization that is available in all of the consumer product I have. I just never really sat down and thought about how much almost everything I own is customized just for me. In gaming I have avatars that I spend far too much time creating. My cell phone has themes to make it the way I want. It is no longer just going out and picking a certain color to match your style, making it your own is part of the experience.
What is the device that you have spent the most time customizing, or have had the most fun customizing? Shout it out in the forum!
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