Gmail Plays Dress-Up

By Casey Lynn
Contributing Writer, [GAS]

Those of you accessing Gmail through the web (as I do) may have noticed the new “Themes” that showed up yesterday. I’m already a fan, myself! The options encompass everything from basic color scheme changes to more complicated redesigns that use soothing photos or cute cartoons.

To change your Gmail theme, click on “Settings” at the top righthand corner of the screen, just beside your email address, and you’ll see a new “Themes” tab. They activate automatically when you click on them, so you can easily click through and try them out.

I suppose the “geeky” one is supposed to be “Terminal” (pictured to the right), but I think I’d go blind if I had to stare at the neon-green-on-black for too long. So far my favorite is “Tea House” (pictured above), which seems to a time sensitive theme. When I first activated it, the fox was sitting in the middle of the yard, and now he’s up in the shade of the tower while the sun is higher in the sky.  I suspect this may be one of the “weather-sensitive” themes as well, since it asks for your specific location when you activate it.

Sometimes little differences can actually be big ones. I’m thinking of how excited Livejournal users get when the site adds new blog themes to choose from.

If you you’ve chosen a new Gmail theme, which one are you using?