Now this was weird. When I first heard about GMail getting some official alternative themes, I thought: “Great, I’m growing tired of its look anyway right now”. In the past I’ve sometimes used Globalxdesign’s “GMail Redesigned” to dive through such occasions.
But then I tried those themes Google provided in the first round (I can only assume that this is just the beginning) and somehow came away a bit disappointed. None of them looked as great as GR and actually most of them for my taste suffered under some low contrast. Also, styles like “Planets” and “Ninjas” while being funny are IMO kind of pointless and should really be left to community to provide. In the end, the only theme I really like is the new default one, although it took a couple of days getting used to it, and up to some degree “Shiny” and “Desk”. The ugliest ones, in my opinion, are “Beach” and “Mountain”.
Perhaps I’m a little bit picky, but I hoped for more. Definitely something at the same level as GR would have been great. What’s your favorite? Btw.: Mashable today had a nice write-up of some of the community themes out there :-)
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