Download Little Nicky
Latest version: 1.0a   (March 31, 2001)

I spent most of the summer and fall of 2000 working on other projects - I started taking guitar lessons; I painted my room; I built a new computer to replace the one I'd been using (in various incarnations) since my junior year of high school, six and a half years earlier. Then, in the beginning of October, I was approached to do two skins at nearly the same time - one for music site Riffage.com, and this one, for New Line Cinema's film 'Little Nicky.'

I was excited at first - I was looking forward to the movie, and had good experiences with New Line on the skin I did for 'Frequency.'

Unlike the wealth of creative material I was provided for that film, for 'Little Nicky,' I received an e-mail with only 3 images attached: one of Little Nicky's (Adam Sandler's) head, one of Beefy the Bulldog's head, and one of the movie's logo. These images provided no real suggestion of a direction to take, and in consulting with my liason at New Line, it was strongly suggested that I just stick to the design of the film's website.

The website for the movie was very unimpressive - it looked like an Ouija board viewed through red-tinted sunglasses. Nonetheless, I was working under direction on this one, so I follow instructions. The thing that made it difficult, though, is that part of the distinctive look of a Ouija board comes from its curved rows of letters... something you couldn't do in Winamp 2. Immediately, the effect was spoiled.

Oh well.

I have to admit the skin is clean and simple. The problem is, since it had to match the colorscheme of the movie's website, it ended up looking very low contrast. Perhaps that's what bothers me the most about it. There are a few things I do like about it though - first is the system of icons within the playlist menus, and second is the stars in the pentagrams (at the time, it was extraordinarily difficult to create perfectly equiangular stars in Photoshop).

So, if you don't like it, that's fine - I sort of don't either. If you do like it, though, let me know - maybe I'm just too close to it to be objective.