Dec 30, 2008

It is a fact of modern life that we expect our stuff to be customized to meet not only our functional needs, but also our personal style.

We expect customization options on the websites we visit, the television we watch and even on our personal devices like cell phones and PDA’s with custom ring-tones and digital themes being the rule, not the exception.  Some devices have even had custom covers and aftermarket color kits to give us even more customization options.  This trend is sure to continue well into the foreseeable future.  In fact, it may become even more popular if the website that I just found has anything to say about it.  These folks take customization to a whole new level.

Enter SkinIt.com.

This cool site allows you to skin nearly anything you have.

Example of SkinIt skins on various devices

You can choose from a moderately sized stable of pre-made designs, or for the mother of all customizations you can upload your own pictures and art using their awesome web based skin design tool.

The SkinIt Design interface for an XBOX 360

This is where you can upload your own stuff, rotate them, add stock shapes, background colors, text, whatever!  About the only thing I found that you couldn’t do with this great tool was have it automatically make text follow a path (meaning, taking text and making it go into a arc, etc.)  Everything else?  You’re covered!

The price isn’t even too bad, with phone skins being around $20, and larger skins (say, for that XBOX 360 you got this Christmas) being around double that.  A bit expensive, but not really when you consider the flexibility that they offer.

Since I’m not the kind of guy to simply choose one of the pre-made skins, my only problem now is actually designing something worthy of display!  Something tells me my wife won’t like the screaming trolls emblazoned on a bright orange bio-hazard background.