“MacThemes’ Theme For a Week Contest’s first act has drawn to a close, and now it’s time for the user’s involvement. 55 titillating entries are competing for a chance to be one of the three winners of a software cornucopia worth over $1000. With such a grandiose prize at stake, we want to make sure that the winners are deserving, and so half of the total score of a theme will be based on the popular vote, so come one, come all, and vote for your favorite and most deserving theme. Starting today, August 8th, voting opens to MacThemes frequenters and outsiders alike, and to give the indecisive among us as much time to ponder their choice as they need, voting runs until Wednesday, the 15th.” from the contest page.

I’ll be judging these over the next few days, but from my initial peek at the over fifty theme mockups submitted, there are some pretty promising themes in the batch. (The top three winners will be fully created into a working ShapeShifter system theme.) A few of my initial favorites below (personal judge commentary coming soon on the contest page):

Aeroesque (below)
“Aeroesque’s transparency is subtle, not blatant like Vista’s, and is actually accomplishable in the areas shown in this mockup; moreover, it has subtle hints of Aqua throughout to make it feel right at home on your Mac.” – designer Patrick Yan (view, comment, and rate)

Wather Color (below)
“Water colors, sunken buttons and some reflections, slightly colored aqua and metal window backgrounds. Smooth…” – designer Toner (view, comment, and rate)

Pluto (below)
“A simple and professional theme… The gray buttons & white glows have originally been inspired by the glowing powerbook key board.” – designer Emanuel Charis (view, comment, and rate)

Plexis (below)
“Plexis is a highly polished, scratch resistant polymer designed to withstand the everyday use and abuse of your desktop… I wanted to create a sleek, professional feeling, theme that I could use in my everyday computing life.” – designer Peter Mathis (view, comment, and rate)

Aerocide (below)
“I intended Acerocide to be easy on the eyes while still being visually interesting. I wanted to use a matte metallic style to give the UI a clean feel, but I also wanted to give the theme a splash of contrast. I used the menubar to tie the aqua and metal styles together.” – designer Nuclear Potato (view, comment, and rate)

There are dozens more, so check them out and don’t forget to vote!