I found an old post from a decade ago with the Zetaboards Theme Zone Staff history:
There was a list for SZ sometime in '08 or something like that. It would be interesting to see an updated version for the entirety of ZNS. edit: ZN? I
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Request Assistant: February 4th, 2007 - September 26th, 2007
Services Staff: September 26th, 2007 - January 20th, 2009
The next handful of years were on the Skin Zone/Theme Zone before and after the transition between platforms. I remember late nights on IRC among close friends working on some of the earliest themes, talking about music on Last.fm, and shitposting. My closest, most frequent collaborator on the TZ team was Leda. We made Yellow Icon Inspired, X:Gen, and some unreleased Candyland-themed theme together all back in 2007-08.
(Please feel free to convert any of these or use them as a reference for your own themes)
Yellow Icon Inspired:
Name: Yellow Icon Inspired Authors: Leda and Wolt Preview Yellow Icon Inspired Notes: This theme was made for a battle and is the result of a collabor
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X-Gen:
Name: X:GEN Authors: Leda and Wolt Date: August 24, 2008 [Reposting] Click for full preview of X:GEN Theme X:GEN Graphics Pack by Leda Notes: I got th
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We also converted some of the earlier IF skins to ZB together, though I can’t find all of them:
Tricolor Jam Conversion:
» Name TriColor Jam (converted for ZetaBoards by Leda) » Author Zeus00 »Click Here to Preview TriColor Jam for ZetaBoards » Zeus00's InvisionFree
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Alaudine FMX Conversion:
Click to preview Alaudine FMX Conversion Converted by: Leda Original InvisionFree Skin by Vettore Notes: Special thank you to Vettore for giving me pe
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0.173.02.01 Conversion:
Name: 0.173.02.01 Author: Valleri Converted by: Leda Preview 0.173.02.01 Notes: Includes all bug fixes as of June 12, 2008. Updated the Shoutbox on De
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9-29-045 was my own basic, imageless theme imagined as a base for others to learn with as a template or customize as they saw fit. This was explicitly released as an "open source" theme for these purposes--I felt fitting the ethos of a forum platform initially started as a fork from another person's creation and that all themes should be licensed as permissively as possible to "pass it on."
Preview (Change the theme to the "9-29-045" theme) Graphics Download (Preview is on the test board. Contains the markers, topic buttons, and small pos
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Emoticons by Leda:
https://support.zathyus.com/viewtopic.php?p=5042680#p5042680 (in retrospect, this was a gift for my 15th birthday)
The themes that I recall being most impressed by were Helios’ Magicey Revolution:
https://web.archive.org/web/20080830095141/http://magicey.org/ dark skin with orange accents
https://web.archive.org/web/20080711160635/http://magicey.org/ dark hammer and sickle skin
https://web.archive.org/web/20081109040234/http://magicey.com/ all red hammer and sickle skin
https://web.archive.org/web/20090220170448/http://magicey.org/ duke nukem theme zone spoof