Looking through Pixelgirl's guidelines for ideas for IN I also came across this again:


I'd read it before and really enjoyed it... general tips on creating usable desktops, especially for Macs. Not all of it may be applicable, but definitely has some good things to think about when creating wallpapers :]

Hmm. Well it's mostly about abstract and minimalistic wallpapers. I am not sure if I fully agree with it though, I do see people who use plain normal stock photos as desktop background which, in most of the cases, are crowded with details, on different levels. So that theory/tutorial does make sense for someone who's more interested at abstract design than anything else. But for people who prefer looking at a different kind of "eye-candy" these wallpapers might become "boring" pretty soon, albeit looking nice at first sight.

Some people prefer funcionality, others prefer style, others prefer composition, it's pretty hard to come up with one single tutorial or guide on how to realize the ideal "desktop". I, for instance, could never write anything like that since I do find illustrations in general (with exceptions, once in a while) to be more interesting as desktop wallpapers. To me, pure abstract and minimalistic design is more like a pretty, eye-catching cover of a book: you fall in love with it, but then you quickly lose interest in looking at it and you start looking for an other cover of an other book. Illustrations, are the book itself: the cover may or may not look immediately attractive and eye-catching, but you spend time, days, months, looking at it, "unfolding" the image by discovering details, by reading a story in it, and when you change it for an other one, after quite a while, it's because you've finished "reading" it. But this is a very personal point of view of mine anyway. (;°A°)

that seems like something I can use lol

Yarr :3 ShiNN you should start up something for Graphica soon-ish man, especially since I've been feeling like braving an attempt at walling Makoto Shinkai XD But yeah, for me I prefer simple-functionality. A lot of it for me when walling is due to system/hardware restraints *insert long-running complaining list about old laptop here, but I'm really too cheap to actually do anything about it anytime soon... and I'm lazy to boot*

But the biggest thing for me personally is I'm a huuuuge icon whore, so I want to be able to see my 3-6+ rows of icons clearly at all times, and be able to get at them. If I can't do that when using a certain wall then the wallpaper fails in functionality. Aesthetics and concept is definitely really important to me (I'm a fan of subtle symbolism, etc. etc.), but I'm very rarely prone to staring at a desktop for long periods time. Discounting when I'm designing/scrutinizing the wip of course XD But yeah... I appreciate that pixelgirl article for its emphasis in functionality, regardless of it being geared towards pop or abstract or whatever. For me wallpapers really need to be functional as well as nice artworks. If you're not putting out something that people find usable, then it doesn't really make much sense to restrict yourself to the wallpaper format. And usability is easy to forget about, and hard to get a feel for in anime wall communities generally. I've definitely talked to people who said "oh yeah, I'm using X wall of yours, but I don't usually use wallpapers that I comment/fav on." So it's kind of like hmmm... *pause*

Nonetheless I think the detailed scenic/illustrations is making a comeback ShiNN-man :] you should put out something soon to spur people on XD

I think as ShiNN, it's not just about functionality torward a single taste in matter of desktops, it comes with the idea that you liked what you just saw and you want to put it on your screen, for somes that thing may be a very minimalistic design or rather a wall with a very complex composition, still appealing, but maybe not that functionable, thinking that maybe you cant see the icons well and stuff, it's then matter of the moment, I want my screen to look bright or dark, that's it. In my case I'm always looking for very minimalistic, calming designs since I'm used to create weird, complex, distracting pieces, wich most of the time I dont even consider them good as desktop designs, sometimes because I'm actually not loiking at them as that, just as illustrations, but things are different to everyone, for the ones for example that love to put chaos into their screens and the ones who just dont care at all.
The tutorial it's more like a base, a balance of considerations that you should make when you are trying to reach a very particular group of people, but not something you should always follow as a guideline.

omg I hate having icons on the desktop I cant stand it

o.o how do you live without desktop icons?? I think I'd die without all my shortcuts lol XD

I on the other hand, rarely get to see my desktop due to the infestation of icons... >_>

hollly why oh why do you do that to your desktops, right now I have seven desktop icons because some are images of things I want to work on etc etc but its driving me crazy I hate desktop. its not that hard to be with no icons how many programs do you use normally

All I have to say is, Dock. :D




My desktop is also without any icons.

Show-off XD

Desktops are meant to be used and abused!!!

Erm, I mostly have a lot of folders. I put most of my programs in the quick launch menu. But like, shortcut to wall/wip folders, site folders, random files that I don't want to put into folders automatically for this reason or that...

Man I'd die without all those right there lol, just like I'd probably die without certain of my firefox extensions XD

I thought that desktop icons used more memory and where therefore to be discouraged? I'm no computer expert tho...I'm a fan of the dock, like Gid. My desktop has three icons: trash, my computer, and my docs, which I don't use because my computer once freaked out on me and refused to ever let me back into my docs, so the stuff is there but I can't open it :'''(

On the wallpaper topic, I can appreciate both sides of the argument, but because I don't have a lot of icons to worry about, I can focus more on what's appeasing to me artistically and downplay the functionality issues.

I sometimes have alot of icons and im just itching to remove them I save pictures or scans sudenly because I find them intresting and want to wall them but when I see them I dunno I cant take it, they break the harmony with the desktop wallpaper I normally only have the trash

Interesting - hadn't thought about desktop icons using memory. Not that I'm a computer expert by any means as well, but I can't see them taking up more memory then say, my windowsblind style that's up currently. Just did a little Googling and as far as I can tell, icon number only affects speed at which desktop is refreshing... and there are apparently ways you can adjust the registry to make icon cache larger, etc. etc.

I haven't noticed having a large number of icons really affecting the performance of my laptop all that much though.


*chuckles*

Once you reach 4gb of primary memory, you'll be immune to all sorts of bloatware and (supposed) memory apertures. XD
Both of my displays are filled up with icons, and I have big fat applications (dreamweaver/ps/ai/firefox[yes, it usually surpasses anything previously listed in memory footprint]/etc) running for days on end, and I can still play hl2:deathmatch without any problems.

Yes, I like to abuse my RAM.