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Forget About Aqua, Say Hi to Amora

July 29th, 2006 at 1:55pm • Posted in GUI Customization • Tagged , , ,

Nearly a year ago, Iconfactory artist David Lanham shared some icon sketches with me based on Bjork's "All is Full of Love" music video which features some really cool white plastic/black rubber sheathed robots. I told him he just had to do a full theme based on these icons, and after a loooong and rather painful (think over 17 totally different attempts at getting the Finder buttons right painful) development, the theme, titled Amora, is now finally nearing release having met David's high standards for his work. Presenting Amora:

Amora Preview

Now, normally I would preview this kind of thing at MacThemes, but as the site is currently undergoing a lot of renovation and soon a host change, we thought it'd be better shown here for now.

All I can say is, thank God ShapeShifter recently hit public beta. I slapped Amora onto my MacBook as soon as Jason made it possible. This is honestly one of the most ambitious, boundary pushing, flat-out cool themes that will hit this the themeing community this year, and I'm glad I had some part in it.

Coming soon. Just keep your eyes trained here.



Comments

Up until this point, there have been 34 responses to “Forget About Aqua, Say Hi to Amora”:

Derek

July 29th, 2006 at 2:14pm

While I can see the detailing that went into the theme, I think the window buttons are a little to cluttered? I like the unified windows but that top left corner... meh. I like the detailing. However, wth large windows, those dark corner cutouts draw too much attention.

Jeremy

July 29th, 2006 at 2:14pm

Hey I lvoe taht theme its really awesome best by far ive seen so far. IS there anyway you could send it to me or something Id love to have it on my mac. OH yeah i got shapeshifter also.

Pridef

July 29th, 2006 at 2:27pm

Thanks for feat. me in the shot Phill, this screenshot looks great and the theme sure does kick ass!

Goodluck with it David...

David Rodgerson

July 29th, 2006 at 2:29pm

That is nasty. You like that though?

Phill Ryu

July 29th, 2006 at 2:38pm

Hell yeah I like it. ;) I'll be switching between this and Uno for a while. (Short attention span.)

Paul Wilde

July 29th, 2006 at 2:41pm

Strangely, I'm not very fond of it.

It's mainly the red buttons that I don't like, they seem to lack detail.

Steve

July 29th, 2006 at 2:44pm

This looks really unusable.

Phill Ryu

July 29th, 2006 at 3:01pm

Steve, the heavy visual weight on the left top corners of windows took a bit to get used to, but I'm happily cruising on Amora now. Basically, I guess you'll see whether it's usable or not for your use when it's out Monday. ;)

Pat

July 29th, 2006 at 3:41pm

i don't see what's so special about it now...

the window controls & dvd control are cool, but its not pushing any boundaries...

it's going to be one of those "cool" themes that aren't very usable. having a large black portion of your window on the white is really unusable, and the small buttons don't match with the other aqua portions of the theme.

i think david would be better off theming windows where there is more flexibility

bv

July 29th, 2006 at 5:55pm

i like it. it might be one of those themes that take getting used too. but with that said the black is possibly an issue(?) maybe just have another variant(?)
awesome pixel pushing though. amazing!
peace.
bv.

stridey

July 29th, 2006 at 6:05pm

I find it interesting that out of all the apps you showcase, not a single one uses a fully-featured standard cocoa toolbar. For all we know, the toolbar widget (little candybar thing in the upper-right hand corner of windws) doesn't even exist in Amora.

Strange app choices... :/

Kr

July 29th, 2006 at 8:21pm

Pure Gross.

anonymous

July 29th, 2006 at 8:28pm

Aqua was designed to make the interface as neutral as possible, in order to highlight the actual useful bits.

This theme is waaaaay too distracting.

Mike

July 29th, 2006 at 8:31pm

The Safari buttons should be bigger or in line with the default ones.

The top left corner of each window is absolute crap, was someone on drugs when doing that part ?

The rest is very nice.

Ian

July 29th, 2006 at 8:38pm

This is great and all, but isn't it a bit silly to pre-announce it like this? Think of all the visitors who will have forgotten about this by the time it gets released on Monday.

John Paul Jones

July 29th, 2006 at 9:13pm

But Ugly like like something the Linux guys would thinks of as Cool.

It looks like Crap on the Macintosh

Carlo

July 29th, 2006 at 9:42pm

DUDE COME ON THE THING IN THE TOP LEFT IS SO SUPER FUGLY I CANT EVEN BEGIN TO EXPLAIN IT

get rid of all the unecassary shit and then maybe it will be work a look...

David Rodgerson

July 29th, 2006 at 9:48pm

I think it's that I don't like themes/skins in general. I'm getting old. I remember using Aaron, and then I got the Copland themes for OS 8, and..... then I lost interest.

David

FOTA

July 29th, 2006 at 10:44pm

Wow, that's amazing... the Mac has SKINZ?! Who knew? OMGWTFBBQ, I totally have to get teh Mac now.

Ryan

July 29th, 2006 at 11:53pm

I really like the idea, but the theme is a little odd, I still like it and hope you make more. The digg community has other opinions though.

Frank

July 30th, 2006 at 2:19am

I think it's pretty badass actually. It's different for sure. I'll be giving it a try come release day.

KapitalD1 » Blog Archive » Aloha Amora

July 30th, 2006 at 5:12am

[...] 얼마전에 David Lanham씨가 새로운 테마와 아이콘세트를 준비 중이라는 얘기를 살짝 했었는데, 같이 작업에 참여했다는 PhillRyu씨가 자신의 블로그에 스크린샷을 올렸네요. [link] 이거 생각보다 훨씬 맘에 드네요. 깔끔하고… (Somatic은 별로 맘에 안들었었어요. ^^;) Bjork의 All is full of love 뮤비에 감명받아 만들었다고 하네요. [...]

Brandon

July 30th, 2006 at 10:46am

There are tons of these "industrial" style skins for Windows. Being the first one of its kind for the Mac doesn't make it a good theme. I find the industrial look to be pretty unsophisticated and childish.

Jim

July 30th, 2006 at 3:28pm

I can't even begin to candy coat this one.

It honestly looks like many of the hundreds or thousands of themes for the Windows crowd. Some folks like them but frankly in my eyes I think it sucks bad.

Just remember there's a reason so many people try to duplicate the Mac look and people just eat them up. This one probably wouldn't even make it in the top 100 if rated against many of the themes for Windows.

Chris

July 30th, 2006 at 10:26pm

This has to be one of the ugliest themes evar. It looks extremely unusable and "clunky." The area around the X - + buttons looks stupid and out of place. I was expecting something better. ;(

AbramG

July 31st, 2006 at 1:47am

I for one Love the stuff David produces. He is one of the nicest and most appreciative people I've had the pleasure of talking with. I have some of his prints hanging in my house :)

Count me in on the " I will be downloading Amora " bandwagon. I'm looking forward to using it, I try lots of themes, but UNO is my staple :)

dangerouslyawesome » Article » and the fickle crowd turns

July 31st, 2006 at 12:03pm

[...] ive been impressed by the quality content Phill has present on his blog for the last few weeks. Dugg blog posts were nearly a daily occurance. For the first time since his fanbase has grown, he posted his opinion about a UI product called amora. and the crowd seems to disagree in a big way. whats this going to do for phill’s fanbase? are his 15 minutes over? i hope not, because he’s written some excellent features in the last couple of weeks and hopefully wont be discouraged. [...]

PhillRyu.com - New Iconfactory Now Live, Amora Unleashed

August 01st, 2006 at 1:12pm

[...] And those who were concerned about Amora’s rather crazy looks will be happy to know it includes two more muted variants, including one that can best be described as a more modern, sharper Milk. Plus, there’s a really cool desktop by former collaborater and one of my favorite artists, Piotr Gajos. Intel users, just make sure you have the latest ShapeShifter beta installed to have these theme work! [...]

风逝 » Blog Archive » Amora

August 01st, 2006 at 9:53pm

[...] Author: David LanhamDownload   高手一出手便知有没有。以Somatic系列闻名的David Lanham给广大粉丝们带来了新的惊喜。继Amora的MacTheme在7月末高调登场之后(PhillRyu.com 更是打出了 Forget About Aqua, Say Hi to Amora 的口号),Amora的图标也于David Lanham所在世界的8月1日发布。广大win用户终于不必只是流口水,也可以一同享受Amora的未来了(被W3C折磨之后焕然一新的Iconfactory语)。   依惯例,勤劳的David Lanham叔叔不会让自己的主题只停留在mac世界的。我们安静等待官方port即可。 Posted to 制定 at 09:50 with [...]

sally

August 02nd, 2006 at 9:35am

sorry for the dumb question, but how do i get the theme and not the icons? i have the candy bar icontainer, but i dont want the icons, just the themes in my application and finder windows...

Phill Ryu

August 02nd, 2006 at 12:46pm

Sally, the theme itself can be downloaded at dlanham.com.

Michael Müller

August 03rd, 2006 at 7:01pm

Yes.. download here: http://dlanham.com/goodies/amoratheme/amoratheme.dmg
Great Blog btw! I'll be visiting soon again! Regards from Ecuador.

sally

August 06th, 2006 at 11:06am

thanks phill, i finally figured it out and i love it. i have to say i wish the buttons on Mail were a little bigger and smoother, and that the upperlefthand corner buttons were larger. why? because they're so goddamn cool looking i ust want to see them a little better. that, and theyd be easier to click on. amora is awesome, haters be damned.

yteh.com » Blog Archive » Amora is Beautiful!

September 04th, 2006 at 6:08pm

[...] Amora, by David Lanham, is one of the most beautiful themes I’ve ever used. I first read about Amora sometime back on Phill Ryu’s blog entry titled “Forget About Aqua, Say Hi to Amora“. It really shouldn’t have taken me this long to use this theme on my Mac. [...]


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