Grayhaze, is a relative new face on the skinning scene, but he's already made a name for himself by taking the majority of the 1^st place prizes in this years GUI Olympics, and eventually winning the overall top prize. I recently had the opportunity to prod and poke him, and convinced him to bare his soul…

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Tek: Hi Grayhaze, if you could start by telling us a bit about yourself. Your name, family, hobbies, things like that.

Grayhaze: Hi there! Okay, my name is Kevin Purcell, but just about everyone online knows me as grayhaze. I'm 24, soon to be 25 next week. I told you not to ask me about my childhood, so I'll skip that bit. My hobbies are far too numerous to list, but I'll try if you like. :)

Tek: Yep, give us a few examples of what you do to relax away from the computer.

Grayhaze: Okay, well aside from the computer stuff, I'm a complete movie nut, I read quite a lot (mostly Stephen King), I'm a keen amateur photographer, very amateur guitar player, and general playboy.

Tek: What do you do for a living, and where are you located?

Grayhaze: Well I'm from the UK, and have lived here all my life. I'm currently “between jobs”, or unemployed as realistic people call it. Although I do still run my own freelance web design service through grayhaze.com, I'm trying to get back into a full-time web design job at the moment. Unfortunately there's been a major downturn in the web industry in this country, so it's proving harder than I'd like.

So if anyone has any jobs out there for me, I'd be happy to talk to them. ;)

Tek: You're a relative newcomer to the skinning scene, but in the few months you've been active, you'd made quite a impression on the public, by producing some beautiful skins, and most notably from your 1st place win in the GUI Olympics (Not to mention cleaning up in most of the catagories). How did you get into skinning, and who would you say your influences are?

Grayhaze: Okay, I knew skinning would come into the conversation somewhere. ;)

I'm not really sure when I started skinning in the strictest sense of the word. I've pretty much always dabbled with interface design in some form since I first had a computer. I guess the first time I really made anything approaching a skin though was on the Amiga quite a few years ago.

I used to design replacement window controls for use with this program called UrouHack. I guess it was sort of a very early forerunner to WindowBlinds, and was simplicity itself as it only needed three images.

When I later got my first PC, after my hands were pried away from my steadily dying Amiga, I started to play around with skinning, although never really put together a whole skin. This dabbling then sort of evolved into my whole web design fascination. It grew from there really.

Tek: So far, you've made your mark in the WB scene. Are there any other apps you've been skinning , or are there any others that appeal to you, and we will be seeing Grayhaze' name on at some future point?

Grayhaze: Well I've always intended making ports of my skins to ObjectBar and WinAmp, although time really hasn't been on my side there. I was also really pleased with the port of my “dinks” skin that Dangeruss did for HoverDesk, so at some point I'd like to try my hand at doing a similar thing with my other skins.

Tek: What inspires you when you make a skin? How do you come up with the idea for how the skin will look?

Grayhaze: As with most skinners, I tend to create skins primarily for myself. I start out with a rough idea of what I want to achieve and go from there. Obviously I'm just as prone to trends as any of us, so for instance metalX has a lot of elements which I've seen in other skins.

I think with my first skin, dinks, I pretty much hit on the way I want my desktop to behave. So now I mostly stick with the layout and build new looks around that.

Tek: Yeah, you certainly nailed it with Dinks. I remember when I first saw it, I grabbed it straight away. Great skin.

Tek: Do you ever suffer from the dreaded “skinners block”? And if so, how do you get past it?

Grayhaze: I would say I'm pretty lucky when it comes to that. As I have to keep my ideas fresh in my other work, coming up with new ideas is never really that big a problem. As I said before though, once I start a skin it tends to change dramatically during the process. So I just keep plugging away at the design until I come up with something I'm happy with.

Tek: What's your creative process for making your skins? Do you start with a sketch or just the idea in your head? And also, what programs do you use when you skin?

Grayhaze: My creative process isn't really a process at all. I've never really had any formal graphic design training, so most of my work, both skinning and in other areas, tends to just evolve directly in the painting apps I use. I get a general idea of what I want to create, and then it just evolves into something else entirely.

I tend to use Fireworks for most of my work, although I have used Photoshop in the past too. I find Fireworks really helpful when designing, because it enables me to move stuff around and play with the way it looks a lot more.

Tek: I noticed on your website (Plug: http://www.grayhaze.com) that there was a bit of Flash interaction. Do you work in Flash a lot?

Grayhaze: In my previous job at a web design agency in London a large amount of my work was in Flash, and it ended up being a bit of a speciality for me. Previously to that job though I started to play around with Flash, and found that I was able to do a lot of very cool stuff with it. I'm looking forward to being able to afford Flash MX, as it really seems to be a huge leap ahead.

Grayhaze: By the way, thanks for the plug. ;)

Tek: Hehe, no problem.

Tek: Going back to the photography you mentioned earlier, how long have had an interest in that?

Grayhaze: Well I've been into it for quite a while now really. Ever since I was young I've always loved having a camera in my hands and just snapping at random stuff. I guess I really got into it when I had a summer job in Florida taking tourist's photos. Since then I've bought my own digital camera and I try to keep it with me wherever I go.

Tek: Is there any subject matter in particular you favour, or do you just look for interesting things when you're out and about?

Grayhaze: Well people do think I'm a little crazy for this, but I have a big thing for clouds and sunsets. I'd say about 50% of my photos are of the sky.

Tek: Heh, signs of a dreamer!

Grayhaze: Indeed! Head in the clouds. :)

Tek: You said that you play guitar to relax. What sort of music do you like to play/listen to?

Grayhaze: Well I did say I'm a very amateur guitar player, so I can't exactly play music yet. I know two chords though!

As for what music I listen to, I'm one of those annoying people who say they like anything. I tend to buy movie soundtracks mostly, just for the varied mix of music. Recently I've been listening to a lot of alternative stuff too — stuff like Sum 41, Blink 182, that kind of thing.

Tek: Lastly, any tips for new/aspiring skinners?

Grayhaze: I really think the best way to learn to skin is to just do it. Decide what you want to create and don't give up until you've hit your target. I spend a lot of my time just playing around creating different looks for buttons and so on, and I think it's that playing that keeps the ideas going. I would say that anyone can skin, regardless of artistic talent.

Tek: Ok Kevin, with that we'll wrap it up. Thanks for being my “victim” for this interview. The final word is yours, you have an open floor, anything you want to add/plug?

Grayhaze: All I'll really say is thanks to all those people who voted for me during the GUI Olympics. It's the best feeling in the world to know you're doing something that others appreciate, and that's reward enough in itself.

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Kevin's work can be found at many of the skin sites, including WinCustomize and Velocityart, as well as his own personal site, which can be found at Grayhaze.com.

— Hippy, May 2002