The GUI Olympics is an inter-website contest in which top graphics designers from around the world compete for $15,000 in cash and prizes. This year's contest focuses on WindowBlinds visual styles, IconPackager Icons, and Winamp 5 skin. Anyone can participate as an individual or part of a team.
Event Results!
EVENT: Best overall WindowBlinds visual styles:
Description:
These are the visual styles that capture as many aspects of why someone might change the look and feel of the Windows GUI. The skin the delivers it all. It's not just about what skin you'd use (we already had an event for that and here is a link to some other usable visual styles from the GUI Olympics), it's also about the artistic qualities, innovation, completeness.
Commentary: Going into this final event Pixtudio, SkinPlant, and returning champion deviantART were all in a position to win the overall medal count (9 to 9 to 7). These three teams have done stunningly well (they've won 25 of the 36 total medals up to this point). In the final event, Pixtudio is able to edge out by taking both first and second places and deviantART finishes a respectable third. Of the 7 skins that made the final top 5 spots, 3 were from SkinPlant, 3 were from Pixtudio, and 1 was from deviantART showing the concentration of skinning talent from years of experience.
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Skin/Author |
Screenshot |
Comments |
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Antares
treetog
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This is a visual style where the screenshot tells you almost nothing about it. Someone looking at the screenshot may not recognize how awesome this skin really is. It's all in the details. The actual use of it. Antares is a reminder of why most people bother to change the look and feel of Windows in the first place. Its animations, sounds, toolbar icons and progress animations go together. One cannot help but appreciate the immense time and effort spent on this along with an attention to detail that most people will never recognize. It is for these reasons, and more, that the judges concluded that this was the best visual style of the GUI Olympics. |
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Pixel 8
essorant
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This is another visual style where the screenshot doesn't really do it justice. One might even say it's kind of odd looking. But it's when you use it that you really appreciate it's design. It's not just different looking from the regular Windows design, it's more usable. It's hard to go back to a plain Windows system after running Pixel 8 for awhile. The perfectly spaced title bar buttons make it a pleasure to use for long periods of time.
It is also very complete. What probably gave it those last extra points was that it alone of the finalists included a good dialog background texture which helps complete the overall effect. |
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Vector-Cell
b0se |
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Vector Cell was the favorite of many of the judges in many many areas. It is a clean skin with a very unique design. If the judges were voting on "Coolest looking skin you're most likely to recommend to your friends who are only casually into skinning" this would be the skin.
It doesn't include toolbar icons or progress animations which all the other finalists included. This made judging it difficult because if completeness is a factor, then one must decide how much those factors should matter. On the other hand, it included the best wallpaper of any of the finalists. WindowBlinds allows wallpapers to be integrated into part of the skin and we felt that this helped give it a complete look that casual users are more likely to appreciate.
Vector Cell's unique design, high usability and overall excellence helped propel it to be in the top 3 best visual styles of the GUI Olympics in a field of over 100 skins. |
| 4th |
neOS
danilloOc
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NeOS had some of the best sound effects of any skin. When you press the title bar buttons, cool effects are played which gives this skin a nice feel.
NeOS would be a good representative of one of the primary philosophies behind using skins -- making Windows look cool and different. At the same time, as more casual users have gotten into skinning, it would also be representative of the kind of skin many non-WindowBlinds users don't like. Thick title bars and busy title bars. Fortunately for us, this is about WindowBlinds visual styles and WindowBlinds users and the general principle is "Why am I changing the look of my GUI in the first place?" It has sounds. It has a roll-up button, and it is very complete. Which is why it has won one of the top honors of the 2004 GUI Olympics. |
| 4th |
G-Pod
Gabriel
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G-pod was one of the most unique skins and like others, screenshots don't do it justice. Fully animated with a heavy use of sound and probably the best progress animation in the contest, G-Pod has it all going for it. Like neOS, it's also probably one of those skins that casual users would say "It's too big and chunky" (a response that tends to make some of us want to say "Save up your allowance and buy a 17 inch monitor and go up to 1280x1024 where you can really appreciate these things).
The one downside of this skin, which is easily correctable, is that it has a minimize to system tray button where one would resize a skin. You can load it up in SkinStudio and disable the button very easily.
It's innovative design and just overall coolness made us choose it as one of the best skins of 2004. |
| 5th |
Quasar
MikeB314
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Quasar was a favorite of many users based on what we saw and it was a favorite of the judges as well. It has a very elegant design with some excellent power user features (see the bottom border). It also packs all this into a relatively small space which makes it not be particularly large.
MikeB is pretty well known in the skinning community as one of the skinners who can make the most of a few more pixels in window borders. Most borders of a window are just wasted space. But MikeB's skins tend to make the most of those few extra pixels WindowBlinds allows him to make use of. |
| 5th |
Blanco
The Morphium
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Blanco was also a heavy favorite in the skins this year. Its clean design and high usability made it a natural skin to use. It was also reasonably unique in its overall concept and well executed.
Morphium has emerged as one of the up and coming skinners in the skinning community. He has a knack for understanding the types of skins people use. Being the best overall visual style isn't necessarily about what skin most people would want to use (otherwise Erik Holmer's excellent Luna HOE, a favorite daily use skin amongst the judges would have won).
But Blanco wasn't just complete, it was a unique skin in many ways. Usable and unique is not easy to accomplish these days but he did it. Which is why, Morphium's Blanco walked away with one of the top honors. |
EVENT: Best overall icon package
Description: These are the icons that delivered the most unique new look with the highest quality in artwork that people would want to use on a daily basis.
Commentary: Look at how different each of these icon sets are and you can imagine how difficult the judging was here. Each one outstanding. Icon packages had had 70 to 150 icons in them each with dozens of packages to choose from. It was a fantastically successful event.
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Icon Package/Author |
Screenshot |
Comments |
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The Last Order
Rokey
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While there were only around 70 of these icons, they were so unique and so well crafted that it still gave it the overall edge. |
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Thunder Storm (Icons)
treetog
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Treetog's Thunderstorm icons were slightly more conventional but had the advantage of having around 100 of them and the judges felt that the file type icons on Thunderstorm were the best in the contest other than perhaps PirateOS (also by Treetog). |
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Dementæcon
MindlessPuppet
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Demaneaecon was by far the most original set of icons we've seen in..well ever. Their excellence is not well served by screenshots though so don't judge these fantastic icons by this screenshot. They're not just random images put together either, they all have a subtle theme to each one that makes sense (it helps if you're a little insane too). Moreover, these icons had different images for different sizes, something the others generally didn't have. |
| 4th |
d3A
Miloszwl
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d3A has much in common with The Last Order. It might have a little bit too much in common as they are fairly similar and d3A came out a month after The Last Order. There are more icons in d3A and while it is similar to The Last Order, it is still unique on its own too. |
| 5th |
Megaton
- vf -
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Megaton were a favorite of the judges. To our knowledge, no one has ever successfully made such dark icons that "work" well in daily use at this level. These are icons people would use and there are a LOT of them - over 120 unique icons in this package giving it a significant advantage over other icons. |
| 5th |
Pirate OS Icons
treetog
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The judges liked the icon design a bit better in Thunderstorm but preferred the colors of PirateOS (the ultimate icon package might have been ThunderStorm design icons with PirateOS's colors). About 100 icons in this package make it very complete and its good use of colors make it very useful on almost any desktop. |
| 5th |
Alloy Bezel
vf
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Grayscale icons tend to be hard to do well but as vf has already demonstrated with Megaton, it can be done. It was as if vf were telling the world "Oh yea? I can make incredible icons only using 1 or 2 colors!" and indeed, he made his point. The screenshot here doesn't do the package justice though as there are nearly 150 of these icons in the package so that nearly every icon on your computer is changed. |
EVENT: Best Overall Winamp skin
Description: The Winamp skins that deliver the full experience. Not necessarily a skin you would make as your default skin. It's about showing what can be done in terms of innovation, coding, artistic quality, and just overall coolness.
Commentary: Team Breedart dominated the best overall contest taking both first and second place. It was a tough call on all of the top 5 because they were all so well done and well coded.
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Skin/Author |
Shot |
Notes |
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D-Reliction
kriptoner
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Outstanding coding combined with excellent graphics put this in the running along with a high level of usability |
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Enkera
883
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One of the most original and unique designs of the contest combined with lots of color options, and terrific design. |
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WooHoo-FER
VAG
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Outstanding coding and well crafted graphics along with both a "cool looking" and well done usability version. |
| 4th |
EMP 2
Andrew Mackowski |
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Very high usability with lots of different color options. Scripting not as sophisticated but outstanding aesthetics make up for that. |
| 5th |
Resurgence
Muniom Designs |
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Really good coding, good usability with lots of color options make this one of the tops. |
Week 4 results:
EVENT: Best Pseudo-OS WindowBlinds visual style (skin that one could imagine coming with an alternative OS)
EVENT: Best Themed Winamp Skin (skin that sticks to a particular theme)
Week 3 results!
After lengthy and careful consideration, here are the results for week 3 of the GUI Olympics.
Event: WindowBlinds - Most creative visual style
Event: IconPackager - Best themed (icons that fit a specific theme) icon package
Event: WinAmp Pro - Most usable Winamp skin
Event: WindowBlinds - Best themed visual style (a visual style that fits a specific theme)
Event: IconPackager - Best Pseudo-OS icon package (an icon package that you could see coming with an operating system)
Event: WinAmp Pro - Best power user Winamp skin
Results: WEEK 2
EVENT: Most Usable Visual Style
This event asked skin authors to create a visual style that people would find themselves using long after the contest was over.
EVENT: Most Original Icon Package
This event asked icon designers to come up with the most original complete set of icons that could be used with IconPackager. Some outstanding entries were in this category and the winners are:
EVENT: Most Creative Winamp skin
Which Winamp skin was the most original overall? This was a pretty tough call for our judges as there were some really wild designs. But when the dust settled, here were the winners (and it was close. we mean really close)...
Results: WEEK 1
EVENT: Most Minimalistic Visual Style
This is for the visual style that is best suited for those users who want to minimize screen space while having their system look nicer than using Windows classic. And the winners are:
1st place:
Author: Erik Holmer
Team: SkinPlant
Skin: Kewk - HoE
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2nd place:
Author: b0se
Team: deviantART
Skin: Opulence
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3rd place:
Author: Treetog
Team: Pixtudio
Skin: Mini OS
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EVENT: Best Power User Skin
This is for the visual style that is designed to increase the user's productivity while making their system more aesthetically pleasing. The winners are:
1st place:
Author: Treetog
Team: Pixtudio
Skin: Antares
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2nd place:
 Author: MikeB
Team: SkinPlant
Skin: Quasar
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3rd place:
Author: Gabriel
Team: SkinPlant
Skin: FM
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