C# - Custom GUI Design

Question

So over the years I have seen quite a few C# and VB applications which have custom UI designs. One of which I can give an example of is the DayZCommander (C#) application which looks like this:

I was wondering this because I wanted to start making login forms which look like this (note this is just a photoshop render):

And just use it for overall form design.

If you can give me some information, or an answer on this topic please do.

Thanks.

Answer 1

First of all you'll have to use WPF to easily achieve these kinda results (It might be possible with WinForms but it will very hard).

You can also use 3rd party controls like MahApps Metro (also available using NuGet). Here's an example of what you can end up with :

You have also tools like Microsoft Expression Blend that will make creating animated UIs/Custom control templates very easy. but sooner or later you'll to dive in XAML to create your own custom control templates but that's beyond the scope of this answer (there are plenty of good tutorials online).