Skinning the frog » About Stardock Design

Published on March 11, 2008 By Frogboy In OS Customization

The Stardock Design website has gotten a re-design. But what should the About page say?

I was thinking something like this:

---

Stardock has long been a pioneer in developing first-to-market technology for the PC market. It was the company that essentially created "skinning" technology on the PC with products such as WindowBlinds, DeskScapes, DirectSkin, DesktopX, IconPackager, ObjectBar, and more. Through Stardock's technology, Windows users could, for the first time, completely customize the Windows experience.

To meet the growing demand for Windows customization content in the form of skins, themes, icons, and animated desktops, Stardock launched Stardock Design. Stardock Design brings together the world's top GUI design specialists and teams them up with some of the best artists in the world.

Leading corporations including ATI, nVidia, Microsoft, Touchstone Pictures, Goodyear, General Motors, Universal Studios, Nintendo, and countless others have already taken advantage of Stardock Design's attention to detail and technological innovation granting them an undeniable competitive advantage over others in their industry.

Today, Stardock Design leverages key partnerships with Dell, Toshiba, Hewlett Packard, Gatway, Alienware and more to deliver its cutting edge designs combined with its mature, reliable customization technologies to ensure their customers have a unique and compelling experience.

What do you think?

Comments

Fuzzy Logic

on Mar 11, 2008

Sounds good

Lantec

on Mar 11, 2008

Mention that general users (like me) benefit from it......Thanks

Jafo

on Mar 11, 2008

It was the company that essentially created "skinning" technology on the PC

Perhaps the addition of the 'words' 'OS' at the end of that, to differentiate between what DX and WB does compared to the likes of Winamp, etc.

[just me being pedantic and nit-picking]....

vStyler

on Mar 11, 2008

Very impressive, bring it on!

Zubaz

on Mar 11, 2008

A few suggestions:

unleash leading-edge channels
reinvent bricks-and-clicks functionalities
deliver dynamic experiences
monetize cross-media partnerships

Sounds pretty good Brad. Who's the target reader? It's not like many folks will read that far back in any case.

You might mention how good looking all the employees are and how you feed them on saltine crackers to keep costs down.

Philly0381

on Mar 11, 2008

I agree, sounds good.

DigitalCHET

on Mar 11, 2008

Gatway? :-"

Zubaz

on Mar 11, 2008

On a more serious note (for me) . . I was poking around and have some other feedback that you can do with what you want.

http://www.stardockdesign.com/portfolio.asp

The tabs are unneccessary and I think detract from the pardigm
The "go to page" serves no purpose unless a user knows what page they want (which is unlikely)
The page numbers "1/2", "3/4" don't serve *much* purpose and can be misunderstood as "1 of 2" and "3 of 4"
I like the actual portfolio UI (and I don't usually go for real-world stuff on PCs). Nice animation

http://www.stardockdesign.com/services.asp

The section elements here might be misunderstood not as areas of interest but as products

Giving the titles more prominence and "contain" the artistic elements
Maybe move the text above the graphics

http://www.stardockdesign.com/news.asp

Plan on an archive of older stories now.

Why is the MyColors content hidden away as a footer? Why no links in the portfolio to MyColors or to the StardockDesign library at dreams.wincustomize.com?

Jafo

on Mar 11, 2008

You might mention how good looking all the employees

Jafo pleads the fifth....

little-whip

on Mar 12, 2008

~wonders when Stardock and co. are going to announce their IPO...

cactoblasta

on Mar 12, 2008

If I was you I'd drop the picture of the building. It's not a very interesting building. There's no particularly spectacular architecture and it's a fairly dull grass and trees setting.

Anything could be in that building - a law firm, a tax accountancy, a school.

People have an expectation of high-quality design firms which you don't match with that photo. Where's the striking colour palette? The bold design? If you want to be taken seriously as designers at first glance, you need to be presenting the accessories of designers. Which means slight eccentricity and a less traditional public appearance.

Looking at how blue the rest of the site is you might be best off taking a corner of the building - preferably the bit where you have the Stardock logo - and grabbing as much sky as possible. If you can't make the building look cool, the right colour angle, saturation and style might do the trick. Your photographer might have some ideas if they're any good.

If not, you'd be better off with a colourful staged interior shot or, preferably, a particularly stylish sample of your work.

Also, your last quote has a grammatical mistake you might want to correct. It should say, "...Working with them, we were able to create a desktop theme that reflects ASUS' corporate image..."

Sargan81610

on Mar 12, 2008

Very good description

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