New BlackBerry Theme Studio enables Easy Theme Design, Illustration and Animation

RIM has announced the availability of BlackBerry Theme Studio – a free suite of theme design, illustration and animation tools that make it easier to create custom interfaces (themes) for BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry OS 4.2.2 and higher, including the new BlackBerry Storm2 and BlackBerry Bold 9700 smartphones.

BlackBerry Theme Studio includes:
+ BlackBerry Theme Builder – a design tool for customizing a smartphone’s user interface, including the home screen layout, fonts, icons, message list colors, cursors, dialog boxes and home screen application icons.
+ BlackBerry Composer – an illustration and animation tool for creating animated SVG graphics that can be used to add animation to theme buttons and backgrounds as well as animate web sites and applications for BlackBerry smartphones.

BlackBerry Theme Studio 5.0, which replaces the previously available Plazmic Content Developer’s Kit, features the ability to import Adobe Photoshop files to BlackBerry Theme Builder, add ringtones and build screen transitions such as zooming, sliding, wiping and fading within themes. Ringtones and screen transitions are supported for BlackBerry smartphones running BlackBerry OS 5.0 and higher.

RIM also announced that themes for BlackBerry smartphones can now be submitted to BlackBerry App World™. BlackBerry Theme Studio is available for free and can be downloaded at www.blackberry.com/themestudio.