I always thought the “DJ” in DJ-Designs stood for Disk Jockey. You know, those obnoxious characters on the radio that talk through all the tunes. Turns out it's not. Those are his initials. Hippy had a talk with Daniel Jansson alias DJ-Designs.

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Hippy: Where do you live?

DJ-Designs: Örebro in Sweden.

Hippy: Where does your history in art begin? Were you a “scribbler” as a child?

DJ-Designs: When I was younger I liked to sketch, I had no skills but I enjoyed it alot but I havn't sketched anything in years. My interest in computer art started as soon as I got my hands on a computer, thats about 2½ - 3 years from now. I was inspired by the great old skinners like misery and fli7e and so I got myself a copy of Paint Shop Pro (version 4.14 at that time) and I've been making my own art since then.

Hippy: What is your system like (hardware, memory, monitor, etc.)?

DJ-Designs: Bought myself a new system not to long time ago, built in from scratch, I'll never buy a Dell, Compaq or anything like that. Build it yourself, then you can get all the parts that you want. My system looks like this:

• AMD thunderbird 1000mhz

• 512sdram

• 3D Prophet II GTS 64mb graphic card

• Nokia 920c screen

• 1 IBM deskstar 46gb HD

• 1 IBM Deskstar 42gb HD

• Microstar K7t Pro 2 motherboard

• Sound Blaster LIve 1024

• One 52x cd-rom and a 32x12x10 burner

• And of course a keyboard and a mouse =)

Hippy: Do you have a favorite program(s) you use to create skins?

DJ-Designs: I only work in Photoshop when making skins, started with Paint Shop Pro but switched to Photoshop after a while which I'm glad I did. It was hard in the beginning but once I got the hang of it I didn't wanna switch back.

Hippy: What methods do you use for inspiration, prior to designing a new skin?

DJ-Designs: Inspiration comes from all the things around me in my life I guess, nothing specific that I can think of. I simply make a new skin when I feel like it and got inspiration enough, after I've finished a skin it can take months before I start on a new one. It's very time consuming and it gets boring when creating to many in a short time. I've done 2 skins for websites and for those I got alot of inspiration from their websites, pictures on them etc…

Hippy: What is your skinning process like (do you create sketches, and develop them, as in suites, etc.)

DJ-Designs: When I'm designing a new skin I got a little image in my head how the basic look will be, but far from the finished product. While I'm creating the skin I get ideas among the way and I'm experimenting alot, sometimes things are done by mistake but it made it look good. I always finish the main window in winamp first and then continuing with equalizer, playlist, that darn minibrowser (I hate it) and finally the AVS.

Hippy: Is skinning/digital art your full time career?

DJ-Designs: No, it's just for the fun. But I wish that sometime in the future it could be.

Hippy: Do you have a family (kids/wife/dogs, cats)?

DJ-Designs: I have my father, mother and a big brother, had a dog once.

Hippy: Can you tell us what you are working on right now?

DJ-Designs: Right now I'm working on a winamp skin that will be released in the end of october. And I'm working on piece that will be released with the first pack (chapter one) in the upcoming artgroup Raster. A new website layout may be in progress soon as well.

Hippy: How do you view the future of skinning?

DJ-Designs: Not really sure, I dont even know how I will manage myself in the future since I'm only skinning winamp so far. As we all know now winamp 3 is on it's way and personally I dont like it, I'll stick with 2.x because it has all the features that I need. I guess I will continue making skins for winamp 2.x for me and those who stays with it, I know I'm not the only one that prefers winamp 2.x instead of the upcoming 3 version. The thing is that I dont like using freeform skins, so I probably wont make any, time will tell.

But there are new skinners coming up all the time and there are alot of programs out out there to skin so overall I think in the future skinning will expand. While others leave there are always new to come. I wont continue forever, no one does. We can only hope for new skinners to arrive, I'm sure they will (hopefully).

Hippy: Do you have any any advice for us skinners?

DJ-Designs: First of all, dont use a skin program! Make it yourself. Functionality is something that I also think is important, I dont like skins where I have to look for the buttons, not talking about winamp now since most users knows where they are without button labels.

Be active in a community, ask other people if something is bothering you, we are all here to help in one way or another.

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Fnads's Five

Hippy: What skin do you wish you'd designed/written?

DJ-Designs: SII Standard by Yug, one of my all time favorites.

Hippy: What would you like to have on your laptop if you were stranded on an island,

DJ-Designs: e.g., skins, music, proggies, peripherals, games, etc? Well, that would have to be 3D Studio Max, Photoshop and a copy of winamp and all my mp3's. I'm not really much into games anymore so I would survive without any. And oh, a satellite internet connection ;)

Hippy: Have there been any skins that have made you laugh? Cry? orgasm?

DJ-Designs: Hmm, I think I might have laughed when seing some of those elite photoskins, please forgive me by saying this but they are terrible. I never really had an orgasm by viewing a skin but Petrol Flange by monaux! — pheew — that was close.

Hippy: Boxers or briefs? (or, which do you prefer ?)

DJ-Designs: Boxers for sure.

Hippy: List some sites you visit daily, weekly, hourly…

DJ-Designs: Hourly: deviantart.com
Daily: the rest of the sites in the community, lots of skins, customize etc.
Weekly: I really dont visit that many sites other then the above, but once in a while I visit digitalblasphemy.com and look at his newest creations.

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http://www.dj-designs.com

— Hippy, April 2002