Id like to develop an alternative to KickOff as I want a start menu in a very specific style... Where would the best place to start be? What languages do I need to know? Im pretty fluent in Obj C, C#, PHP, Java and JS so that should help a bit. Any ideas?

You could try QML + Javascript as a start.

Here's some information: http://techbase.kde.org/Development/Tutorials/Plasma
viewtopic.php?f=285&t=120996&p=309946

I also suggest that you take a look at other plasmoids, such as this one: http://kde-apps.org/content/show.php/Ap ... ent=146098