It’s not often you ever encounter a theme like GAIA, revealed by technici and Resident Themer Hirogen, along with several other contributors, a few weeks back to much anticipation and excitement, and finally released to over 7 pages of forum discussion in a single day. But does GAIA live up to its hype as a community suite, and can it become the reigning theme of a user’s desktop?

Aesthetics
Upon seeing screenshots of GAIA about a week before its release, I was not anticipating enjoying the aesthetics as much as I am right now; simply put, GAIA is beautiful. Sporting pearly-white windows and controls with brimming black titlebars, it possesses a style so unique it’s difficult to point out comparisons to other themes.

We’ll start with the buttons. GAIA’s futuristic, polished shapes steer away from the usual choice of all-rounded corners, instead rounding off two opposite corners (akin to Digg’s “Digg It” buttons), an original concept fitting with the theme’s unorthodox color and design choices. Scrollbars, shaped like a rhombus instead of the usual capsule, making use of black and two shades of grey, which contrast well against the solid-grey scrolltrack. Titlebars stand out wonderfully in a light blue, a color choice also adopted by resize handles, scroll arrows and other miscellaneous widgets. Titlebar buttons, ditching the standard “x - +” glyphs, instead incorporate tiny, stylized arrows, a creative decision I quickly grew to like, but one that some may disagree with.

The menubar is another example of the amount of attention to detail and innovation in concept. Where the Apple logo previously stood proudly has been replaced by smooth black and neon-bright curves, providing a simple color change when clicked and only a small arrow to speak its purpose. Rolling over a menu bar item sports the same black sheen as the titlebar, and even the menu bar glyphs have been redrawn in GAIA’s unique, futuristic style.

So, what’s the verdict, all in all? To put it best, GAIA is a stunning example of aesthetic near-perfection, both in innovation and execution.

Usability
There is perhaps only one way to describe how usable GAIA is, and that’s “wonderfully”. Hirogen and technici’s ability to create a soft, beautiful interface is certainly worth a note, but amazingly, the contrast with the brimming black titlebars does not at all distract from this.

GAIA’s crowning usability achievement is not the design itself, but rather, the consistency. Absolutely all buttons, tabs, popup buttons, radio buttons and checkboxes take advantage of GAIA’s rounded corner concept, all redrawn beautifully and sporting the same visual feedback. Glyphs like the resize handle, scroll arrows and Spotlight icon have been unified with the glowing blue dot, a decision anyone who hasn’t used GAIA might write off as ridiculous until they’ve actually used it. And, as if further proof was needed, Aqua and Metal windows are almost to-the-pixel identical, the icing on the cake. Nothing further can really be said: GAIA’s five-star usability and consistency is in a niche group, with few themes out there able to touch it.

Extras

GAIA’s creative aesthetics and drop-dead stunning attention to usability may just be topped by the unprecended number of extras included in the package. The 31 appskins- some of which aren’t even included in ThemePark by default- is one of the best indicators of this, including skins for- along with all of the standard inclusions- Camino, Cyberduck, NewsFire, OmniWeb, Pixadex, Toast, Transmit and many, many more.

There’s much more to cover, though. Hirogen and technici have also included skins for Adium and iChat (the former sporting a new Dock icon, message style and status icons), CoverSutra resources, a creative set of Finder backgrounds, hacks for Vienna and Camino, a QuickTime controller replacement, Yahoo widgets, beautiful high-resolution wallpapers (ones I will be using even after I finish the review), and, as if that wasn’t enough, a complete 36-icon set in PNG, ICNS and iContainer format. There isn’t one area of OS X that hasn’t been touched by GAIA’s excellence, and even those accustomed to themes like Vitae- certainly a contender for most ambitious UI overhaul- will be blown away at the volume of extras.

What more needs to be said about GAIA? With beauty brimming in every nook and cranny of the interface, usability held in the highest regard and a number of extras so unprecedented it spans over 20MB worth of space, this is a theme in the top of its class, and one certainly worthy of a download.