Tag - Skins



January's best of Messenger skins
Posted by absorbation on Sat 02 Feb 2008 (17:36 GMT)
Here is a new feature I thought I'll introduce. Every month lots of skins are created for Messenger Plus! Live's skinning engine, but only a hand full are half decent. Here are some of the best looking, and most unique skins for the month of January:

Skin of the month: Deep Blue
Deep Blue is a stylish skin, dramatically changing Messenger's design into something more unique. Its creative design, with a simple colour scheme makes this a skin that looks great on your computer. The highly customizable options allow you to transform this skin to how you want it, from adding/ removing elements to changing the size of display pictures.

Most unique skin: 365 Skin
365 Skin is an ugly skin, but I love it. The idea is you can have a different skin for various events throughout the year e.g. Christmas, your birthday, mother's day etc is wonderful. The colours are awful and it needs polishing, but the idea is interesting and that alone makes this a good skin.

A good contender: Zero-G
I hate Vista skins, which is why I didn't like Zero-G too much. It is too dark for my liking, but nevertheless it still looks great and contains hardly any flaws. It is a little too similar to EvO, but I still highly recommend this skin.

Skins worth a mention
Plus! Live - Matches Messenger's design to Messenger Plus! Live.
Yahoo Messenger - Gives Windows Live Messenger Yahoo Messenger's colour scheme and icons.
Classic WLM - Uses the original alpha builds of Windows Live Messenger 8's design.

>> View the Messenger Plus! Live skins database
2 comments | 10 trackbacks | Permalink | 565 views | 380 words


Messenger Plus! Live skins I just love
Posted by absorbation on Sat 05 Jan 2008 (14:29 GMT)
I have been putting this post off for a while now. My excuses are exams and the fact this post probably needed time to get a good list together. I am a bit of a Messenger skins fanatic and I have been chatting all about Messenger Plus! Live 4.50 in recent weeks, which revealed a big new feature: a Messenger skins manager.

The skins I have chosen are ones I have found to be well designed, unique and most of all ones with attention to detail i.e. completed fully, polished. Yes, this means no Vista skins!

Ev0

This Messenger skins has been around a while, and its creator was able to get his hands on an early build of Messenger Plus! Live 4.50 so he could get this skin out by release. Its clean design, with unique ideas is complimented by the various colour themes available. To date it has had nearly 200,000 downloads and is probably the best skin available for Messenger Plus! Live.
>> Download EvO

Beaver and Steve

Honestly Nile, this skin is rather ugly; its bright colours and the cartoonish look are not desirable, but it is these things that make it unique, charming if you will. More importantly it uses shapes therefore making it the first skin released to manipulate Messenger's windows. Nile has put a lot of effort into this skin and there are lots of customizable options meaning you can remove things from Messenger until you are happy. I'm actually surprised he didn't try and plug it himself ...
>> Download Beaver and Steve


SkyLines

This skin is very stylish and well made. Looking over all the little details you can see a lot of effort has been put into making this skin. This skin is compatible with Windows Live Messenger 8.5 and 9.0, so what are you waiting for? Add SkyLines to your skin library.
>> Download SkyLines


Nightfall

A dark skin is the best way to describe this. Its simple, but I like simple and I think this is just the start for its creator. The skin is customised for green, red, blue and black colour themes.
>> Download Nightfall


RoyaLive!

Similar to Nightfall this skin uses soft gradients well. It has its flaws, but overall it is a good skin.
>> Download RoyaLive!



Office07

This skin is all about basics. It shows that all you need to do is take your time and perfect the images you want to skin. The colours in Office07 compliment Messenger well, but more importantly its creator designed this website, so I'm forced to think it looks great.
>> Download Office07

Nao Messenger

This skin users colours well in my opinion. The theme of green and blue suits Messenger when used in this way. It adds fun to Messenger, but at the same time good enough to use everyday. It may not be perfect, but Nao Messenger is better than most.
>> Nao Messenger


I hope you liked my list. If you have a skin of your own and want to share it send it our way. Remember these are just a selection of the skins available, view the entire database for more. If your skin is not on the list, there is a chance I missed it, but more probable is I didn't like it.

3 comments | 37 trackbacks | Permalink | 2536 views | 901 words


Skins for Windows Live Messenger 8.5
Posted by absorbation on Tue 04 Sep 2007 (21:31 GMT)
Just a quick post here to tell all you Messenger skin lovers out there using Windows Live Messenger 8.5 beta that there are a few skins available for you to use.

Are there any good ones worth noting? Not really, however, you can try Ev0, Vista Live Messenger or Windows Aero Messenger for Windows Live Messenger 8.1.

>> View skins for Windows Live Messenger 8.5 beta
>> View our skins database
1 comment | 31 trackbacks | Permalink | 1351 views | 96 words