Websites dedicated to skins and themes
So you've got Windows XP and want to get some skins for it or you have Windows 98, ME or 2000 and want to start customizing. Where do you go? There are dozens of websites out there that let people download skins and themes. But there's only a handful that are really dedicated to it and have the bandwidth to support lots of users.
There are two main skin sites and 3 smaller dedicated sites. Each one has its own pros and cons and my suggestion to you, the reader, is to try them all out and see which one suits your needs. The two big ones are WinCustomize and DeviantArt. The 3 smaller ones are LotsOfSkins, Customize.org, and SkinBase.
o WinCustomize.com
WinCustomize is the Walmart of Windows customization. It specializes only on the most popular skinnable programs and is designed to make it easy for users and skinners to get and submit skins, themes, icons, walls, etc. It is also owned by Stardock which makes popular skinnable programs such as WindowBlinds, ObjectBar, DesktopX, IconPackager, etc. This has helped make it the most popular "skin site" in the world. WinCustomize has tended to highlight its sections as the applications that have made it to the "big leagues". For users looking for skins for little known programs, WinCustomize wouldn't be the place to go. But if you're looking for icons or PNGs or Windows Media Player skins or wallpapers or WB visual styles or SysMetrix skins and so forth, WinCustomize would be the place to go.
o deviantART
deviantART isn't a skin site. It's an art community that happens to have skins. And over the past year, it has come to be the world's most popular art site. Its popularity has been earned the old fashioned way - it was simply vastly better than other similar sites that existed and over time it won over users from around the world. If WinCustomize is Walmart, deviantART is the art wholesaler.
While not a "skin site" per se, it does contain a wealth of skins, themes, and icons as part of its overall mission of supporting art in all forms. And it is very inclusive -- it has vastly more sections for skins, themes, etc. than WinCustomize.com does making it a haven for those up and coming programs that haven't yet made the "big leagues".
Where deviantART really shines is in community features. Its message boards and other discussion areas get more activity than all of the other skin sites combined several times over. The site has features to it that are unique amongst all sites out there, not just skin sites. Users can have personal journals that they let others look at. Any would be web master wanting to create a virtual community should take a close look at DeviantArt as a model of how to do it right. Its design has especially appealed to younger users. Most deviantART users are teens and come from an artistic background. What really makes deviantART a leader is its community. Where the other sites struggle to get a dozen people to have a conversation, a typical news item on deviantART can have hundreds of users chatting. It has features that just have to be seen to be believed. Anyone who knows what's involved in building a website can't help but be awed by the features and power of deviantART.
In the past year, deviantART has seen its traffic continue to soar. It is now moving up towards getting slashdot levels of daily traffic.
o ArtUproar
ArtUproar used to be called LotsOfSkins. At some point, most customization sites reach a fork in the road. Is their constituency the artists who create the content or the users who use the content? At some point, LotsOfSkins made that choice -- a place for artists to hang out and became ArtUpRoar. It has remained quite popular though obviously over shadowed by deviantART. On the other hand, it provides a bit more intimate atmosphere for artists and users alike to hang out and interact. Highly recommended.
o SkinBase
SkinBase could be called Encyclopedia Themica. That's because it offers the most comprehensive support for skinnable programs of any site. It contains statistics of all kind that are useful to both skin/theme authors and users alike. It recently went through a heavy redesign which integrated some good ideas from other sites (such as a much cleaner interface) combined with its own innovative twists that make surfing the site very easy and efficient. Another nice thing about Skinbase is that like LotsOfSkins, it's a very friendly place. Anyone who surfs the net long enough knows how nasty parts of the Internet can be. Going to a site like Skinbase can feel like getting into shelter from a downpour. You have to visit it to see what I mean, it's just a very friendly place to be at.
o VelocityArt
VelocityArt is was new 2-3 years back but its friendliness and good design has quickly made it quite popular. It did extremely well in the Winter 2002
GUI Olympics thanks to support of skin authors.
o Skinz.org
Skinz.org has a long and inconsistent history. It has changed hands many times and the newest owners are working to try to bring it back to a semblance of its former glory. It has an up hill climb, however. Sites like deviantART and WinCustomize have effectively carved up the niches that Skinz.org used to specialize in.
o Deskmod
Deskmod is in a similar situation as Skinz.org. It has gone through a lot of ordeals over the years that highlight the challenges that skin sites face. Running a skin site is an unusually expensive project. A skin site is, ultimately, a file download site. This means that the bandwidth costs can be significant. And skin sites have always had the problem of finding ways to generate revenue. File sites like Download.com charge authors to list their file. Such a system would be impractical on a skin site and many users have been outspoken at the thought that they should be forced to contribute in some way to paying for the massive bandwidth that these sites use. That leave finding new and clever ways to pay the bills. Deskmod, at the time of this writing, has had to take down its skin sections due to the bandwidth costs associated.
o Customize.org
Customize.org was really the first dedicated skin site. It has changed owners over the years but the mission has remained the same. What makes Customize.org unique versus other sites is that its library is the oldest. That means you can actually go back and find the very first skins ever created. For me, that's a big deal because it's fun to see how far things have come. It doesn't hurt that it serves as a reminder to the "commercial software is evil" zealots that programs like WindowBlinds were here at the start. So what was the first WindowBlinds skin on there? Oh the shock, a skin that combined BeOS and MacOS from December 1998 (5 years ago!).
o The others...
There are other sites on the net that have skins and themes but we focused on sites that have at least a half dozen different sections (otherwise we'd be stuck having to cover every wallpaper site or every theme site which would be painful). But there are other interesting sites on the net that are worth checking out. There's
Neowin.net which is a tech site but has arguably the best message forums on the net. There's
ThemeXP which has lots of logons, boot screens, msstyles, and wallpapers. There's also
Hardware Geeks which is like a sister site to Neowin. Where Neowin specializes in talking about software technology and more, Hardware Geeks focuses a bit more on the hardware aspects. There's also
eMaculation.com which has lots of useful informaton. There is also
Aqua-Soft which is full of tips and content that help you transform Windows into looking like MacOS X.
