10/06/2002 Interview with Karim Chakroun of Mythomania
Introduce yourself to us. What is your name? Where do you live? How old are you??
My name is Karim Chakroun. "Mythomania" is the login name I took with my first e-mail, and I'm attached to it :). I've a French mother and a Tunisian (lookup the map) father, and I live in Osaka, Japan. I'm 31.
How did you happen to get into making skins for the Clie?
The first CLIE I bought was the N700C Japanese, and I made a mac-looking skin for Audioplayer. I dropped skinning for a long time after that because I was unsatisfied by the 160*160 pixels rendering; it's when I upgraded to the Japanese NR70 that I tried once more, always with Mac-looking skins (WaterBubbles and iTunesSkin on (http://www.soramimi.palm-j.com/SilkMuseum/index.html). At the time, I was giving my work freely, but I realized that I would never have a honest comment on my work, and I decided to sell the skins.
How do you get ideas for your skins that you make?
My first skins were very Mac-inspired; then, I was influenced by Laoshi's work on sonipa. Now I get my ideas principally from internet, or from magazines, etc... I have no dedicated inspiration source.
What tools do you use to make each skin?
First, you have to know that my “main” work is graphic design. I'm working in a design studio in Osaka, so I have all the tools I need at hand. I use Illustrator 10 for the general design, and switch to Photoshop when I need a realistic emboss effect. I use Imageready to cut my bitmaps, graphic converter to convert them to .bmp, pilrc for compiling, and Constructor for last-minute checks. FileZ on my NX to check the properties of the files.
About how long does it take to make each skin??
IceWind took about one month... but generally, 1-2 weeks. First, as I said, I have another job. Then, I test a lot of different designs before deciding which one I will finalize. I like to work the details of the design, even the bitmaps 90% of the people will never see such as(I/O memorystick icon, etc...)
What PDAs do you currently own and which is your favorite?
I've only my beloved NX 70. I sell my old machines to buy new ones.
What would be your dream PDA?
A NZ without the keyboard, and with a 5GB internal hard disk, with fireware, just like on the iPod.
What are some of your favorite PDA websites?
1 ClieSource 2 CliePlanet 3 ClieClub (Japan) 4 Palmspirit (France)
What are some of your favorite PDA applications?
PalmReaderPro (I have one hour of transportation to go to work) TimeTracker (for work) for the rest, I'm quite happy with the standard apps. I would like to thank Karim Chakroun for taking time out to answer my questions. I would recommend his skins to anyone.
Mythomania Skin Review I heard about Mythomania’s virtual graffiti skins on the ClieSource forum and got intrigued. I asked to help beta test any skins he might have. Which led me to helping him test out the IceWind skin that was recently released. The skins that he has produced, which all can be viewed at http://homepage.mac.com/karimc/ are all very well done. Now I know some of you will balk at having to pay for a skin. I think five dollars for a skin that works on both the NR and NX is a good deal. What you get for your five dollars is a status skin, a graffiti skin, and a launcher skin for the new NX launcher. The ones I have tested are IceWind and his most popular skin, Panthere. I also recently got a copy of Maikah. Of the three I have to say my favorite is Panthere. I asked Karim what inspired each skin theme. Pathere was inspired by the Apple iSync logo. Maikah from the emergency button of a car dashboard. IceWind was from a cool looking homepage. All the skins are of high quality. Some of you may balk at having to pay for a skin, but I think his skins are well worth the money.
Thanks to Karim for taking the time to do the interview and also to Brian for setting in up and asking the questions.