Mobile Theme Design: Me, Trends and Trouble

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The Popularity of Free
The first year I began producing these mobile device PSD’s, the response was amazing. People found great inspiration and practical use in the development files and it was a good chance for me to refine my design rendering skills away from web and logo design. A lot happened for these PSD’s last year in the way of exposure. They were features on well over a dozen premiere Photoshop development websites, I was interviewed a few times and I even managed to get a Daily Deviation, not bad.

Since the beginning of March, I’ve begun selling the mobile device PSD’s and even though I’m humbly doing a decent job in sales, the number of people looking at the devices on my profile has dropped dramatically. Where I would release a free PSD and get 500-1000 views/downloads in the first 24hrs, now I’m lucky to get 500 views in the first week. Not surprising considering the nature of the designs and the kind of demand they seek but I did like the attention. Oh well, whatever gives me the ability to keep doing these I guess.

New PSD’s
As promised in my last post, all except the HTC EVO 3D and Apple device have been posted. I’ve even been able to sneak in a few unannounced device PSD’s as well.

HTC Desire S .PSD by zandog HTC Sensation 4G .PSD by zandog

The two mentioned above are flip flopping on me however. I’ve seen three different versions of EVO 3D and the official device image on the HTC website has been changed once with different renditions. I’ve decided to wait until we get a bit closer to launch so I can be sure what device I’m designing for. The Apple device is still WIP. I’ve added a few more devices to the development list though, so here we go:

Work In Progress:
LG Optimus X2 (Yes, I promised this already. Close to done.)
Samsung Infuse 4G
Samsung Droid Charge LTE
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1” (This PSD will including the entire Honeycomb OS UI elements set in high resolution PSD format. Both designers and developers will love this!)
HTC Flyer Tablet
Secret Apple Device

Dead Projects:
Motorola Droid Pro (Sorry, the time and demand were just not there.)
Samsung Epic 4G/Shift 4G (Fell out of the top tiered phone bracket.)

Launcher Complexity ( Android Theme Designers Must Read )
Let’s face it. Without mobile shell UI launchers like ADW and Launcher Pro, most of us would only be dreaming of the themes we design and manifest. Making it easy for the end user to develop their themes in Photoshop or by trail is what drives the diversity on the Android platform. Minimalists and babes seem to make of a good portion of the designers tastes on DA but we’re beginning to see people take it a step further. With the introduction of XML templates to these launchers, we’re seeing a few designers make entire custom themes with widget/dock skins, clocks, fonts and icons. It’s important that theme designers begin to take this into account and understand not just how to design a theme, but how it works on the user interface. I touched on these points in my recent interview with Deviant Art news.deviantart.com/article/14… . I’m all for simple design, but I’m afraid it not going to last. Theme designers need to start learning the basics of how an interactive theme is compiled in XML and ported to their favorite Android launchers. There is some coding involved, but once you’ve got the basics of how things work within a launcher environment, your options become almost unlimited. ROM themers have been doing this for 2 years now. With the new ADW Launcher and the upcoming recode of Launcher Pro, it’s imperative to get this stuff down or else we as visual themers, are going to get left out of the theming loop. Here are some quick links on what Launcher Pro and ADW Launcher are doing and how to learn and access it.

Launcher Pro Skinning: www.launcherpro.com/forum/view…
ADW Launcher Theme Templates: jbthemes.com/anderweb/2010/07/…

If you are interested and need help getting started, both of these apps forums are full of good information and have great designers helping each other out through this change in theming.

That's it for now. Keep pluggin' along!

© 2011 - 2024 zandog
Comments3
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1STLADYQUICK's avatar
It's going to happen, but those of us who like your work regardless will always view and fav :hug: :smooch: