commisioned skins....

I'm sure you could find someone willing to do such a thing. I don't know what the going rate is, but some of the top skinners here have done comissioned skins in the past. I, personally, haven't skinned much besides WindowBlinds, but someone with broader skinning experience would probably be willing.

If I was offered money to create a suite, I'd snap at the chance, although the buyer wouldn't be entitled to sell the suite unless a prior agreement had been legally arranged.
And I pretty much doubt any skinner would agree to that, considering that they could just as easily sell the skins themselves, make way more than 300 bucks and cut out the middle-man who is getting all your profits, and doing absoloutely no work.

I'd also jump at the chance, but I deffinatley agree with Hippy about a pre-arranged agreement as to terms of re-sale and such.

But the only way I could see it actully working out in such a way would be if it was a themed suite commissioned by someone promoting a specific product that the skinner would not have rights to sell on his/her own due to copyright laws regarding the subject matter.

Ah my friends, it's not quite that straight forward. By that logic, there'd be no such things as publishers.

I agree $300 would be a bit on the low end but the question is, how much money do you (or any skinner) think they could make selling a stand along skin? Let's say you tried to sell a stand alone skin at $5 apiece. You'd have to sell 60 copies to get to $300, 100 copies to get to $500. That's a lot of copies to sell. I know it doesn't sound like a lot but if you knew the sales stats on most shareware, most of it sells <1000 in its LIFETIME.

So if Microsoft or some other publisher came to you and said, "I'll give you $500 for a skin for us to include in a product we're going to sell..." I'd say that's a pretty good deal.

Pixtudio has done very well but their $8 suites include a LOT of exceptional skins and are full suites, not individual skins.

Now, the other side, $40 for personal use, Joe? Here's a general calculation:

How many hours does it take to make a skin? Then ask yourself how much per hour do you want to charge? Let's say you consider skinning half-hobby half profession and charge $20 per hour and it takes you 25 hours to make the skin. That's $500. That would be a starting point if you want to commission someone to make you a skin. Now if you commission them to make 10 skins maybe you can get a bulk discount.

hmmmmmmm.....
interesting......

what if there was a company who just wanted it for there personal use? $1000? And the middle woman.... what if the middle woman was like broker (the gal who hustles and gets companies wanting the prodect) and just got the company to the designer (7% commission lets say)?

hmmmmmmmm.......
interesting........

Frame of reference. I was recently offered an assignment to to a high profile single Windowblinds skin for an upcoming movie tie-in. The deal fell through due to a lack of lead time, but the job was to pay twice Frogboy's theoretical minimum starting point.

As another example: I and two other skinners were asked (through a third party) to create a certain skin. Together we recieved 3D graphics equipment with a value roughly equivalent to Dangeruss's proposed fee (either above or below depending on how you view engineering sample hardware).

Sometimes you can be offered non-monetary rewards, and if you're interested in them, they're often "worth" more than an alternative money offer. The GUI Olympics was another (somewhat unorthodox) example of this - several good first- or second-time skinners got OD subscriptions out of it.

Having said this, money usually works well, and you can spend it as you like.

The purchase of 'exclusive rights' to a skin or suite of skins would be viable only if the fee covered, and justified the creation time...

When a client comes to me requesting a house design, he purchases the right of use of the drawing/design for the specific purpose of 'building the residence'. I still own full and clear title, even though the client's payment has covered the entire creation time. I still am entitled to sell the design to a third party....but the client isn't. His 'purchase' of the drawing is quite limited and specific....and all this makes interesting comparisons with the concept of skin 'purchase', and the 'rights of the purchaser'....

Jafo...I'll take one design....$500, right?

Peff...that'll get you a backyard Dunny...

Thought so....

Agreed, I would never do an "exclusive rights" deal. The client would get a license to use it instead.

Hypothetically speaking ofcourse.

History has taught the artist that she/he must be very careful with "exclusive rights" deals. The most famous example I can think of is the rights to the Lenon/McCartney portfolio of songs. At one point Michael Jackson owned the "exclusive rights" to a whole slew of the them and he turned around and licensed them to advertisers. (remember the Nike ads? ) That was a dark, dark day for Beatles purists and it was a lesson to all those that ever consider releasing all rights to their artistic properties. Don't do it without understanding all the ramifications first!!! If not you may be very

Brad, I agree with what you say. If I had been giving the chance to somehow have my skins published, and make money in return, then I'd be willing to obviously have the publisher get a cut of the profits.(After all, they're doing all the distribution work)

My response was in that, as I read Joe's post, someone (Any Mr/Mrs Averge) could pay you to create a suite, then they would go sell it, and make money themselves.(not publish it, but resell it), and they make a quick buck, probably more than they'd paid to have the suite commissioned in the first place.

In general though, most commissioned skins/suites usually are given away by company as part of a promotion, or as used as some form of advertising. Alexandrie's Ford skin, for example, would have been a promo tool. Obviously I'm just taking a guess here, but I doubt Ford sold copies of that off.(But hey, I could very well be wrong, I'm only guessing)

I would not hesitate to sell an exclusive skin one second, if the money is good enough.
I make web sites for a living and the web sites I deliver are then the property of the client. I don't see why a skin wold be different? I get hired to make a skin for a client, it's now his to do whatever he wants with it.
But my time isn't worth $20/hour. Given the time it takes me to make a skins and my current hourly rate, I'd have to charge around $1000 US. Then the skin isn't mine anymore, but the cash is.

paxx
In my branch people buy the work and wait to resell them when the artist is dead.

wow what is your branch?

"The Dead Skinners Society"

wow! I learned some more stuff posting this thread. I have been seriously thinking about making skinning s a part of my design capabilities offered to a client. I am still a newbee at it but if I get somebody who wants a siute (allot of people are interested) I know I couldn't do it all by myself. I wouldn't even know what to charge the client.

Well, anywy thanks for all of the input.
BTW, does anybody know if ther will be a MAC version of this software?

There are and have been similar programs for various versions of MacOS. The latest is called Duality (no, not the film) - see http://conundrumsoft.com/ for more information. WB is not likely to appear on the mac platforms.

just regarding the mac thing.. in the current mac os, you can change the theme of the entire os by replacing one file. it's similar to the idea of xp styles, but the file isn't encrypted and it's a bit more far-reaching in what it 'skins.' although it's possible to just monkey with the file yourself, it's easy to totally fubar the os that way, so the popular thing is little programs that change the file for you.

and yeah, 1000 for a suite of 7-10 apps would be a decent starting place.

And , of course, we can't forget ye olde Kaleidoscope for themeing the Mac:
http://www.kaleidoscope.net

on OSX you can also run different themes for the OroborOSX window manager for XDarwin: http://wrench.et.ic.ac.uk/adrian/software/oroborosx/
probably there will be more to come. KDE has just been ported to OSX: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/29/233236