Aikon History

Aikon came about shortly after I discovered the instant messenger client Trillian (at that time, version 0.635). Seeing the challenge of skinning an application as something I wanted to try (having experimented with Winamp), I set about designing a skin.

At the time the “in” thing was the new Nokia phones with the blue backlight so I used this as my inspiraion and designed the original Aikon based on this. Even the name, for those who haven’t noticed, is Nokia backwards.

August 11, 2001 - Aikon Blue

A fairly simplistic design with “rough” edges. The main contact list is blue, but all the other windows are white due to the limitations of the skinning system at the time.

20,971 downloads at DeviantArt to date.

March 17, 2002 - Aikon Squared

An updated version of Trillian (0.70+) meant updates to the skinning engine and the ability to make all the other windows blue - which, shortly after, I realised how hard on the eyes it can be! This is the “Classic” Aikon as I remember it.

Recieved the DeviantArt Daily Deviation award on the 19th April, 2002.

7,601 downloads at DeviantArt to date.
251,538 downloads at the official Trillian site.

March 22, 2002 - Aikon Squared Classic LCD

Shortly after Aikon Squared I followed up with the “Eye-Friendly” Classic LCD version. Same as the other version, but with the standard LCD look.

19,132 downloads at DeviantArt to date.

September 11, 2002 - Aikon2 Classic LCD Pro Beta

Trillian 2 was released and along with it, the introduction of the Pro version. This was a hasty update as an interim so people could at least use the skin in the new Trillian.

6,298 downloads at DeviantArt to date.

March 21, 2003 - Aikon2 Classic LCD Pro

It took a while, but the full version was released finally with full support for the newer features. I hadn’t varied the look and feel too much from my other releases at this point.

5,667 downloads at DeviantArt to date.
624,473 downloads at the official Trillian site.

March 23, 2003 - Aikon2 Blue Pro

So of course the blue version followed shortly.

6,131 downloads at DeviantArt to date.
251,786 downloads at the official Trillian site.

November 6, 2003 - Aikon2 Classic LCD for Pro 2.x

A minor update with the addition of Jabber support as was requested by a lot of users.

7,931 downloads at DeviantArt to date.

Novermber 6, 2003 - Aikon2 Blue for Pro 2.x

Same as above, minor release with the Jabber support added.

12,702 downloads at DeviantArt to date.

December 22, 2003 - Aikon3

At the end of 2003 I released a full reworking of the Aikon skin. This included a fresh new cleaner look more inline with mobile phones and PDA’s at the time. I had also expanded the code behind the skin to allow for 3rd party theming. So if the skin didn’t match your current desktop, you could create your own theme to match.

Recieved the DeviantArt Daily Deviation award on the 23rd December, 2003.
51,830 downloads at DeviantArt to date.
420,355 downloads at the official Trillian site.

The Future

Aikon has grown in popularity over the 5 years I have been creating skins, to date these main releases have a total of 1,679,714 downloads at DeviantArt and the official Trillian site. That’s an average of over 900 downloads per day.

Aikon4 is currently under development for the currently in alpha testing Trillian Astra (aka Trillian 4). As the new Trillian is still in private testing, I can’t reveal any major details about how the new Aikon is going, or what features I’ve added. Once Astra goes into public beta testing, I will be sure to post more updates.