AB: All-Round Nice Guy

It’s something that we look at every day, but hardly ever notice - it’s the image that lives behind our folders and files, and lets us personalise what our computer looks like when no other program is running.
Busy or calming, colourful or plain, a good desktop picture can actually help you rather than hinder you, and give your eyes a place to rest when they’re tired.
So, what makes ‘the ultimate’ desktop picture? Here’s my top tips, then my own ultimate desktop picture…

Busy or Serene?

Throughout history, there’s always been a yawning gulf between people with opposing personal preferences: left handers vs right handers, toilet seat up vs toilet seat down, back-sleepers vs stomach-sleepers, and, dare I say it, cutlery-in-the-dishwasher pointed UP vs cutlery-in-the-dishwasher pointed DOWN kind of people.

Adding to the list of contentiousness is this curly one: do you prefer your desktop picture/wallpaper to be really busy and vibrant? or do you prefer it to be understated and soft on the eyes?

Having a busy wallpaper makes some sense - it’s so often in our field of view, that you may as well put that screen space to some good use…

Three really good uses of the busy desktop picture are:

1. Slide Shows.
   Having a slide show of your photo gallery constantly changing in the background. It’s a little processor intensive, but a lovely way to keep a variety of your favourite happy snaps in mind.
2. Using it as a note pad.
   A good friend, who would probably want to remain nameless, is a network admin for a large school, and uses his desktop picture to keep a photo of a whiteboard that he once took a whole day to draw all the components and settings of his network. It’s not a work of art, but it certainly keeps all the technical info close to hand. Nice one, Paul.
3. Show a web page.
   Using Windows or Mac, it’s easy to load up a web site, and make your desktop picture a fully interactive web browser. Whether it’s for convenience, or for pure branding, it’s often a lot better than a static image.

For the folks out there who prefer some calmness to their desktops, the stock wallpapers for both Mac and PC are pretty much perfect for the job, but oh so overused…

There’s nothing wrong with finding a little bit of personal taste - whether you have your own one favourite image of your favourite holiday spot, or just a solid colour in your favourite shade - you can always make your computer (and who is currently logged in) instantly recognisible.

The benefits of the serene desktop picture are threefold:

1. It gives your eyes some rest.
   Another contentious personal preference, but some people use their Desktop as a filing cabinet, filling it to the brim with files and folders and recent downloads - while others can be quite anal about keeping their Desktop super tidy and super efficient. If you’re in the former category (and I’d suggest that most of us are at one time or another) then the last thing you want sitting behind 200 coloured icons is a picture with 200 different coloured patterns to confuse your eyes. A smoothly-graduated picture, or a solid texture can allow your eyes to process the image, and pretty much ignore it from that point on, leaving only the files and folders to have to pick through.
2. It separates the foreground from the background.
   Similar to the first point, but more subtle. Sure, keeping a low contrast image helps to find things ‘in front’ of the desktop picture, but a better way to distinguish what’s in front to what’s in the background is to use a tiny bit of 3D trickery, by using either drop shadows, or forcing a perspective. Same as before, your brain sees the desktop picture, interprets it as being ‘not important’, and then move on to the more urgent task of finding the next piece of work. Sort of like those cross-your-eyes stereographs, but less painful!
3. You never have to change it.
   Being boring can actually be quite a time saver, in that you’re less likely to get sick of something plain than of the same 20 photos, or the same ‘perfect holiday spot’ day in, day out. Especially when the likelihood of ever getting to that perfect holiday spot approaches zero.

A Photograph or Nothingness?

Do you prefer a slice of reality, or a slice of artistic nothingness?

For some people, having something ‘concrete’ to refer back to time and again is a very comforting thing - whether to make a social connection or simply to have something recognisable in view allows us to ‘feel human’, especially if we’re actually looking at something made out of plastic, metal and silicon.

The opposite end of the spectrum is to set your wallpaper to something that is purely artistic in nature, and not realistic at all. Sweeping gradients, textured patterns, and over-blurred macro photos all work well in this sense - they give us colour and form, without any baggage of making links in our mind to peopel, places or events. They are simply one more way to allow our brain to escape for a while, and find a fleeting moment of peace while reaching for more work to do.

A quick third option here would be to go back to the extremes of photography, and make the real ‘hyper-real’, and trick the brain into seeing more that what is really there… The aforementioned stereographs, or the fine art of making your computer screen look transparent.

The Ultimate Desktop Picture

I guess it’s time to reveal my submission for the Ultimate Desktop Picture. And yes, it’s the sort of thing that you have to use capital letters for when you type it.

As a photographer, I have over 60,000 photos in my collection that I’ve taken over the last 7 or more years, so I have lots and lots of hi-res images of my family, landscapes, and some really lovely sunsets… but just like asking a Father to choose his favourite child, I’d never settle on just one favourite photo. On top of that, though, I’m not a fan of the moving slideshow of photos - I’d never get any work done, even if I pushed through one photo per second for, uh, 1000 minutes…

So for me, my background has to be static, and not a photo taken by me! As a looong time Apple user, I’ve always been a fan of the lovely static gradient-y/ribbon-y backgrounds that are stock standard - including really enjoying the muted colour schemes - but by the end of the day, the flowing lines draw my eye that little bit too much, and I tire of having to avoid following them.

I’m being picky, sure - but the good news is that the desktop picture that I’m about to show you as being the Ultimate Desktop Picture (note the capital letters) has been in use now across every computer that I’ve ever owned, since 1998. Yep - I’ve had it in use now for almost 8 years straight, and in that time I’ve used it for all of my primary and secondary computers. It’s that good.

I created it in Bryce, a 3D rendering program that is/was specifically designed to render (create) virtual landscapes. It was fantastic for making really big things like mountain ranges, yet really bad for making anything too small or detailed like trees or, God forbid, people. It’s real hidden talent was in creating realistic looking water. There was a lot of tinkering involved to get things just right, but one night in December of 1998, I made a simple setup of a simple body of water, and made this rendering. As a designer, I’m always striving for things to be ‘just right’ - not always striving for perfection - but instead that balance of form and function - and this one was a winner.

Fine and detailed water up close to the ‘camera’ at the bottom of the image, and stretching back and back to a white horizon, it has just the right level of realism to allow your brain to believe that your computer screen has infinite depth, without causing your brain to go into conniptions to try to work out ‘what’s happening in this picture’.

This image is both photographic and nothingness: it reminds us of somewhere, yet is obviously an artist’s interpretation, and not worthy of racking our brains trying to figure out which lake or ocean. Being nothing recognisable, it’s also easily stretched for any ratio widescreen without any great hassle.

And finally, the image is HUGE and yet crystal clear all over. Since it’s a rendering of a made up world, there’s no dust on a camera lense, nor blurriness from scanning it in from a book - it’s a perfect companion to any size monitor - right up to the new 30″ beasts, if you’re so lucky. Actually, it’s *exactly* the right size for a 30″ beast - but don’t ask me to go any bigger, I’ve long since lost the ability to run the program, and hence the ability to re-render another one version.

In case you haven’t already looked here first, then here it is:

This version is circa 500k, and is 1280×854 pixels in size, perfect for an Apple Powerbook 15″ widescreen circa 2003-2005.

If there’s sufficient interest, I can resize my original 15mb master down to all possible screen sizes - let me know if you’d like a particular size, and stay in touch for updates.

Now, Im not sure if there’s such a thing as the Ultimate Desktop Picture Awards, but if there is, make sure that yours truly gets a little sweet credit, yeah?

AB out.