Application Themes and Skins - It’s Design Time

“Can you help me with my idea …?”

Auke Teeninga recently posted a request on Julian’s CTO Video Message, Sunk Costs, asking for a skin that projected a “prototype” look-and-feel to applications. Auke is not the only one who has suggested this. Patrick Wolf and Jesse Lay have also brought up the idea of a “blueprint” design in the past.

After our designer played around with the idea, we got to thinking … this could be fun. Hows about a bit of community involvement.

So what’s the skinny … ? (pun completely intended!)

Give me some skin!

We are throwing down the gauntlet to you guys. 

The challenge is this: come up with a design or concept for a brand new DevExpress skin. 

We’re looking for something totally new and fresh. We’ll select our favourite then add the best design to our skinning library and we’ll extend an invitation to its creator to join DevExpress at either DevConnections or TechEd Europe in November 2010.

Imagine that – your design being shipped to thousands of DevExpress customers AND you get to hang out with the team at a first-class conference! Where do I sign up?!

The submission process is wide open. You can do any of the following:

• Reply to this blog with links and ideas
• Post something on your own blog and send us a link
• Send me an email with your screenshot(s) and notes (rachelh@devexpress.com) 
• Post something to the DevExpress Facebook page 
• Tweet your design (remembering to include the #devexpress tag) 

We’ll collect all of the submissions and review them to see if we can find a top-class candidate.

We've set a deadline of 5pm Pacific Time on Friday September 17th 2010 for all skin/theme submissions.

Remember: Let us see what you see

Not all of us are blessed with design skills. I should know, I am one of them. But whatever means of submission you decide to use, bear in mind that a mock-up or a link to an existing image, along with your design ideas will position you very favourably. We want to be able to see what you see. The more images and rough outlines that you can point us to to help explain your idea, the better.

Don’t forget, forward your ideas by 5pm Pacific Time on Friday September 17th 2010.

If you don’t have any plans to submit a design, you can still join in the fun. Post your support for your favourite skin/theme here or on the DevExpress Facebook page.

And with that, I officially declare it design time :-)

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