Nature's Design on Your Desktop

June 7, 2008 5:01 PM

Designers spend about 90% of their waking life in front of a computer, so the most appealing genre for a wallpaper would be one that has beautiful design mixed with the all important aspect of being outdoors. At their best, desktop wallpapers bring animation to often lifeless computer screens, reflecting the personality of the user and acting as a calling card for creative talent. The Desktopography Project first arrived in 2005 as a place to download nature / topological themed wallpapers with edits from selected designers. They have just released their 2008 library.
posted by netbros (40 comments total)

Of course, if you can see your desktop, you probably aren't doing any work on your computer
posted by b1tr0t at 5:04 PM on June 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I use the "Solid Gray Dark" background on OS X. Everything else is brightly colored, so I like the background to be a background.
posted by smackfu at 5:10 PM on June 7, 2008

I set my desktop to be transparent, so I can see what's going on behind my computer.
posted by null terminated at 5:15 PM on June 7, 2008 [8 favorites has favorites]

It doesn't matter how good the desktop is, I'm still not voting for it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:17 PM on June 7, 2008

Good lord, are you high? What makes you think I the most appealing wallpaper for me would be nature? I have a very small one of my kid, but before I had her it was other inspirational buildings or designs, also small, so that the whole thing would be tidy. The Desktopography images are hideous, they would destroy my career, send me into coniptions, and my colleagues would lose all respect for me. And what the fuck do flying white boxes have to do with "nature" anyway?

Or to put it more succinctly, my eyes, my eyes!
posted by DenOfSizer at 5:19 PM on June 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

myhdwallpaper.com
posted by Dave Faris at 5:25 PM on June 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

MOTHER NATURE IS ROOFIED AND NUDE
posted by Powerful Religious Baby at 5:28 PM on June 7, 2008

What makes you think I the most appealing wallpaper for me would be nature?

To get inspiration from the Ultimate Intelligent Designer. Our Lord Jes....oh man, I can't do this.

Wait...this "project" is a store? Pepsi Lame.
posted by DU at 5:29 PM on June 7, 2008

DU nailed it.
posted by Dizzy at 5:43 PM on June 7, 2008

Designers spend about 90% of their waking life in front of a computer

Only the grunts.
posted by rokusan at 6:03 PM on June 7, 2008

LOL
posted by knave at 6:27 PM on June 7, 2008

Hideous grammar never go's out of style.
posted by Help, I can't stop talking! at 6:32 PM on June 7, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

WHAT


Y'know, if you're a professional designer, and cannot design a desktop wallpaper image better than these, you are not a very good designer. In fact, you should perhaps consider a career in hotel management or real estate.
posted by louche mustachio at 6:34 PM on June 7, 2008

I find this more relaxing.
posted by lukemeister at 6:52 PM on June 7, 2008

Wait...this "project" is a store? Pepsi Lame.

As far as I can tell, the only thing they are selling is a compilation CD. The images are free.

I do think these would be a lot better when one is high.
posted by ssg at 6:53 PM on June 7, 2008

I do think these would be a lot better when one is high.

Now that you mention it, this does seem like something I would need a bong in the shape of a wizard to understand.
posted by louche mustachio at 7:10 PM on June 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Yeaaaaah, I think I'll just stick to my reworked album cover scans, thanks.
posted by Lazlo at 7:46 PM on June 7, 2008

I like my nature without corny computer graphics superimposed on it.
posted by xmutex at 8:25 PM on June 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I use the "Solid Gray Dark" background on OS X.

I use the Medium. I used to do a lot of color correction, and anything else throws off the color perception. 'Course, I haven't actually seen the Desktop since the last time I wiped the drive and reinstalled the OS...
posted by lekvar at 8:50 PM on June 7, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

This commentary is far too harsh. The pics were an amusing diversion with the kids. The pics are good fun as far as high art goes. I particularly like lush.
posted by efbrazil at 9:02 PM on June 7, 2008

Screw manual desktop image management, get Desktoptopia. Cross-platform, and uses images specially selected to tend to not obfuscate icons. Very nice images. You can rate them (which makes them appear more frequently) and advance on a schedule. Free. Very nice!
posted by Lectrick at 9:19 PM on June 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I have 14 tabs open in one browser, and 6 in another. I have Photoshop and Illustrator both running. I have Notepad open, WinZip open, three client documents spit between OpenOffice and Word, and an FTP client going.

In other words, I am a working designer. I haven't seen my desktop since the last time I rebooted, about three weeks ago. I couldn't even tell you what it looks like without specifically checking. I suspect it's some shade of blue -- possibly #1073AB, colloquially known as Pepsi.

Nice desktop wallpaper? Sure. Anything more grandiose than that? No.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:07 PM on June 7, 2008

Please teach me how to be hard core like you oh busy-one!
posted by oxford blue at 11:43 PM on June 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I think you get my point: desktop wallpaper? Who cares? That isn't where design or design inspiration happens.
posted by DarlingBri at 12:09 AM on June 8, 2008

But what if you design desktop wallpapers?

(I have a directory folder full of inspirational desktop wallpapers for my macintosh pc!)
posted by scope the lobe at 12:45 AM on June 8, 2008

xmutex: I like my nature without corny computer graphics superimposed on it.

Seriously. It's hard to imagine what people who absolutely hated nature would do differently. Simulating it through wallpaper instead of going out for a walk seems like the ultimate in mockery.
posted by carbide at 4:00 AM on June 8, 2008

On my desktop I stick up something to do with one of my current projects as inspiration.

If I want nature I go outside.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 4:08 AM on June 8, 2008

Er, think I've seen better on DeviantArt.
posted by Xany at 4:16 AM on June 8, 2008

Could you make the wallpaper bigger?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:18 AM on June 8, 2008

Goatse?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 4:43 AM on June 8, 2008

Needs more boatses.
posted by Dizzy at 5:01 AM on June 8, 2008

I see my wallpaper when I lock my PC, which is pretty much every time I stand up to go anywhere in the office. I used to swap it every month or so, usually seasonally.

Then I found a high(ish) definition wallpaper of Shodan from System Shock. This foolish hu-man will never need another wallpaper again.
posted by slimepuppy at 6:12 AM on June 8, 2008

My wallpaper is a 4 megapixel network map of the internet. Looks like fireworks...
posted by autodidact at 8:25 AM on June 8, 2008

I used to have the Russian Gasmask Children's Brigade, but lost it in the last confiscation and haven't bothered to find it again.
posted by Meatbomb at 8:46 AM on June 8, 2008

Yo, it's like a Lisa Frank notebook got stapled to the back of my screen! I like it and I don't care what people who use their computer for work think. I don't keep icons on my desktop, I don't have many windows open, and it's summer, so yay.
posted by fuq at 9:08 AM on June 8, 2008

Some of these are sorta nice. I don't really understand the vehement criticism above. Thanks for posting the link.
posted by nihraguk at 10:12 AM on June 8, 2008

Neat site. Too bad they've got their hand out (but doesn't everyone?).

Lush (lady in mtns) is nice. I kinda like the ladies, if ya' KWIM. Most of the time I get my wallpapers off of deviantart.com (Customisation > Wallpapers > HDTV). There still aren't enough widescreen wallpapers out there, IMO. As my GF is out of town right now, I'm going to have a week of Alessandra Ambrosio. Next week it'll go back to just the latest CG-art-scape-ish thingie.

I don't see my desktop much either, except on startup & shutdown. Although I do hit the Windows Key + M once in a while when I've got 10 open windows. Supermodels in their underwear helps clear my mind (mostly).

Thanks for myhdwallpaper.com Dave F. Somehow I'd missed that one.

If I can find a nice ovehead shot of Dallas Drake lifting the Cup, that will prolly be my desktop when the GF gets back into town. Ray Borque raising the Cup was my desktop for a couple of years after the Avs won it. Seriously though, I digress
posted by Lukenlogs at 10:33 AM on June 8, 2008

Oh you think YOU'RE hardcore? I currently have suitcase pre-processing 40,000 fonts I just purchased, Acrobat is batch outputting a 12 page brochure with 25 localization versions, Renamer4Mac is renaming 135,000 stock image files and tagging them by color scheme, Illustrator is pathfinder->subtracting 8 150MB+ vector image files at once, FireFox is downloading about 1,000 hi res screen caps from a Croatian video game development house (FTP client? Thpptt! YouSendIt!), Quicken is downloading and reconciling data to my speculative commodities account and.....wait what was this thread about again? I'm just so busy, and so important, I can't be expected to keep track of your silly weblog musings.
posted by Brocktoon at 5:58 PM on June 8, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I enjoy sowing my seeds in fertile fields wherein they may perchance find purchase as much as the next guy, but that image is just ridiculous. Talk about killing a lovely old metaphor.
posted by BinGregory at 7:07 PM on June 8, 2008

These are some of the most ridiculous attempts at art I've ever seen. Even the best examples are just someone spilling "design" over a perfectly good photograph.

Let's hope it quickly go's out of style. (Previously linked, but THE HORROR! THE HORROR!)
posted by mmoncur at 10:14 PM on June 8, 2008