Andrew Shorten

The winners of the ScaleNine ‘Skin to Win’ contest were announced today by Juan Sanchez over on the ScaleNine blog, with the winning entry submitted by ‘Undefined‘, a web development company based in Spain.  

Congratulations to the team from Undefined, along with the runner up and spot prize winners - the quality of all the entries was really high and I know that it was tough for the judges to come to a final decision on the winners.

One of the original aims for running the contest was to increase the number of complete Flex themes available, so it is great that all 27 entries submitted to the contest will be available for you to download, use and adapt for your own projects. Keep an eye on the ScaleNine.com site over the next week as they are uploaded to the gallery.

Just a reminder that if you are thinking of submitting a theme for the ScaleNine ‘Skin to Win’ contest then today is the last day to package up your entry and submit it here.

Top prize is a MacBook Air, copy of CS4 Master Suite and Flex Builder 3, together with a ticket to MAX (US or Europe). We’ve had a good number of entries already so I’m looking forward to working with the other judges over the next week to select a winner!

To support the ScaleNine.com contest I created a series of short tutorials that cover using Fireworks CS3 and Flex Builder 3 to create a visual theme for Flex applications.

If you’re new to skinning Flex components and creating Flex themes I hope these are useful:

• Setting up Flex Builder
• Setting up Fireworks CS3
• Editing skin templates
• Export skins from Fireworks
• Importing skins into Flex Builder
• Testing and customizing skins

You might also like to read Narciso Jaramillo’s article on ‘Creating skins for Flex using Creative Suite 3 and Flex Builder 3‘ and the Flex documentation on skinning.

Skinning, along with creating visual components in Flash CS3, represent the main ways for designers to work with developers on Flex applications today.

As we look to the future we can see that Flex 4 (Gumbo) and Thermo will provide new workflows for creating rich internet applications - see Ted’s Thermo screenshots blog post to see how Thermo is coming along and be sure to attend MAX later this year if you want to learn more about Thermo.

Adobe, along with EffectiveUI, are sponsoring the ScaleNine ‘Skin to Win Challenge’ - this is your chance to win a Macbook AIR with SSD, Creative Suite 3, Flex Builder 3 Professional AND a ticket to MAX! All you have to do is submit an original theme for Flex between now and October 10th 2008 to be entered in the contest.

I’ve had the pleasure of working with Juan Sanchez, who runs ScaleNine.com, on this for a couple of months, so I’m really excited to see the entries we receive. Everything you need to enter the contest, including templates, trial software, documentation and video tutorials are available on the ScaleNine website.

If you haven’t created any skins yet for Flex this contest is a great way to get up to speed on using Adobe Creative Suite 3 and Flex Builder to customize Flex and AIR applications. If you’re already a skinning expert then this contest provides you with an opportunity to win some great prizes, get recognized within the Flex community and get your theme featured on ScaleNine.com!

The contest will be judged by a panel of experts from Adobe and EffectiveUI, with entries judged on visual design, quality and uniqueness of the Flex theme.

In addition to the amazing 1st prize, there are 2nd place and 3rd place prizes, as well as spot prizes for entries the judges feel deserve recognition. For those outside the US, you’ll be pleased to know that the contest is open to a whole host of countries - check the Terms & Conditions for more information.

What are you waiting for… get skinning and then enter the Skin to Win Challenge