Yeah, that was accomplished with no rooting.
For the
lockscreen, I used Widgetlocker ($1.99) with the iPhone slider (there are several built-in ones, as well as a ton of custom ones). The clock is SiMI Clock widget (free) and of course the switches is the SwitchPro widget ($0.99). I also used the Circle Battery Widget (free)
The rest of my screens, I basically used
this tutorial at Classical Gas. It's really my second attempt at customizing, so figured I'd follow someone else's tutorial to get the basics down.
My launcher is Launcher Pro Plus ($2.99)
My
home screen from top down, Smooth Calendar (free), Analog Clock Collection (free: note the clock is different from the tutorial above since I couldn't figure out how to install his clock), Beautiful Widgets for the weather ($2.04), and the BattStatt for the battery ($1.49).
The rest of the look/feel is created with Desktop Visualizer (free). This allows you to place a transparent graphic over the wallpaper (like the text-buttons on the left-side of the home screen) and tell it to jump to those screens (or apps if you wish). It also allows you to use custom icons for apps and get rid of the words underneath them. The only other thing I used (I think) was Apps Organizer (free) which lets you take all of you apps and put them into categories, like games/social/settings, etc). Then I used Desktop Visualizer to tell certain icons or images to open a "drawer" containing only those apps. So when I click on the word "games" on the "games" screen, I get a window with all my games (note that clicking "games" on the homescreen" takes me to the "games" screen)
I changed the wallpaper to have a "Calendar" screen rather than a "Settings" screen like he did, then Pure Calendar Widget ($2.04) on my
calendar screen. And of course I created a few of my own icons to use.
So that look cost me $11.54, but with the items I bought, I can create a very very very very wide variety of looks and feels.
Some other items I have around but didn't use include Clockr Evolution (free) which will display the clock like
oneFORTYfour for example, OneSeven (free) which will display the days of the week, and Simple Text (free) that will let you just put some words on the screen.
I'd suggest as a beginner just to follow a couple other tutorials. If you do one or two, you'll have a good handle on how to make your own. Now that I've used someone else's ideas twice, I think I can start working on my own unique design since I have a have a handle on how everything works together.