Google gives Gmail 30 new looks

Posted on 20 Nov 2008 at 14:21

Google has added 30 new themes to Gmail, bringing the same level of customisation to its webmail service as it has long offered on the iGoogle portal.

The new themes have been added alongside the original default colour scheme, which has also been made “crisper and cleaner”, having been largely unchanged since the launch of the service in 2004.

“You might notice a few colours and pixels shifted around here and there,” Annie Chen, Gmail engineer, notes on the Gmail blog.

“Gmail fans have been building unofficial extensions to spice up their inboxes for a while, but up till now themes haven’t been an integral part of Gmail,” the blog post says.“We wanted to go beyond simple colour customisation, so out of the 30 odd themes we’re launching today, there’s a shiny theme with chrome styling, another one that turns your inbox into a retro notepad, nature themes that change scenery over time, weather driven themes that can rain on your mailbox, and fun characters to keep you in good company. There’s even an old school ascii theme (Terminal) which was the result of a bet between two engineers - it’s not exactly practical, but it’s great for testing out your geek cred.”

Themes can be found in a new tab on the settings page, although the feature is not yet rolled out to all users. Google, as usual with new features, is gradually giving access to users over a period of a couple of days.

The move is in part a reaction to demand from users for more customisation, which has already led to several third-party hacks.

The webmail service has received a handful of updates in recent weeks, including the addition last week of video and audio chat.

Author: Matthew Sparkes

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