ReAqua
Filed under Theme Entries Posted by Admin on August 6th, 2007 at 1:38 am Comments are Disabled
Author: Ante Vukorepa
Judges' Vote: N/A
User Rating:
Description: Aqua reincarnated, with more gimmicks, a darker, plasticky feel and dark blue gel. Aqua's evil sister would probably be an apt description.
Graphical Intent: To provide a sleeker, darker feel to the GUI, while preserving the compatibility and readability where possible.
General Comments: Made 100% from recycled NeOnyx scraps ;)
chris posted on August 7th, 2007 at 12:38 am:
please tell me when you finish this.
Joe Kohlmann posted on August 9th, 2007 at 6:28 pm:
Hi Ante (if you’re reading this),
I like the color scheme you have going in ReAqua a lot - very Pro-looking (especially since the dark purple is more muted than the candy-esque Aqua Blue). Unfortunately, I have a feeling that it’ll be overlooked among the mockups with more ambitious color schemes.
As far as the Finder buttons are concerned, I would consider making a more distinct “selected” state - unfortunately you wouldn’t be able to have a separate glyph resource (the icon glyph with the white glow). The rest of the design in this mockup would migrate well to ThemePark.
The pinstripes might work, but the menu background’s pinstripes are a little too strong.
The light purple menu item selection color might make the white text in the foreground hard to read.
The inactive/disabled push button state appears too similar to the active state of the “Back” segment tab and the popup button (the only difference being the text color), so maybe try to differentiate those.
At first brush, it appeared to me that the white glossy style you’re using for the active push button and the selected segment tab might be out of place, but on second thought, I believe the separate style is a good dash of variety. The white glossy style is, however, used in two different states. (If you were to directly mimic Aqua, for example, the “Front” segment tab should be purple and the “Back” tab should use the white glossy style instead). That could work well, but it could be confusing. See my quick edit on my MacThemes Contest Suggestions gallery for a better idea of what I’m talking about.
The last thing - the Apple menu and Spotlight menu items are a little blurry, and the white glow also makes other elements seem blurry, especially on an LCD. I’d considering removing the glow and perhaps tightening up the look to be its cleanest.
Joe Kohlmann posted on August 9th, 2007 at 6:29 pm:
(Click my name in the comment thread to visit the aforementioned MacThemes Contest Suggestions gallery.)
Ante posted on August 10th, 2007 at 11:35 pm:
Wow! Thanks a lot for such detailed input!
You’re right about the finder buttons - it occurred to me after the contest period was over (and after i’ve already sent one correction in a nick of time). You’re also right about the pinstripes in the menus - they are definately a tad too bright.
About the push buttons - the goal here was to have the same style for the disabled button as for the unselected (non-current) tab. I.e. greyed out push button = deselected tab = opaque plastic, while an active button = selected tab = transparent (clear) plastic. Default button animation would be from purple to clear, as expected.
It’s a purposeful step away from Aqua’s standard behaviour, made because of two reasons:
a) to make things a bit more interesting and
b) because i’m not really sure you can make the text color of the selected tab a different color than the “back” one (and if i were to follow Aqua conventions, it would have to be white instead of black).
Re: The glow - they don’t seem blurry on my MacBook Pro, just… well… glowy
But i see how it could look blurry and unappealing on different color calibration setups, so perhaps two flavours of the theme could be a solution.