Google gets more personalized

Well, they did it again and very clean I must say. Google launched the ability to personalize their home page with a set of 7 custom themes that you can apply through a widget or tray to your page. The tray which is presented like a widget is opened through the "Select theme" link near the "Add Stuff" link on the top of the page. They basically show/hide the widget, instead of acting like the other widgets which is good. I hope that they have a global visual design direction moving forward and if this is the sign of what is to come, they better keep photoshopping. It is nice and simple, but reminds me of the old AOL themes AOL had in their 8.0 client with background changes. AOL and Yahoo is much farther ahead in the visual design arena and probably always will be until Google hires more talent in that area.