The Desktop Wallpaper Project

The Desktop Wallpaper Project is a project based off the of the Radiohead Countdown Wallpapers I created in 2007 in honor of In Rainbows coming out. But this time around, I decided to write all of my favorite artists and designers, many of which you’ve seen featured on this blog, and see if they’d contribute a wallpaper. As it turns out, my favorite artists and designers happen to be some of the nicest people out there, and so many of them were more than happy to help and be a part of this project.

Here’s the plan: I’ll be releasing one desktop wallpaper every Wednesday morning (California time) until I run out of wallpapers. They’ll be free to download, and come in a multitude of monitor sizes, as well as iPhone and PSP versions just for the fun of it. I hope you enjoy them all!


Name: Joe Hinder
Degree/College: Graphic Communication, Bath Spa University UK
Website: www.joehinder.co.uk

About Your Wallpaper:
Imagery inspired by Yuri Suzuki’s ‘Sound chaser’.

I received an email from a fellow named Will Hibberd a couple months ago asking me if I’d be interested in featuring some of the work from a design collective he helped start in The Desktop Wallpaper Project. The collective is called Just Us., and is made up of a number of young designers and recent graduates from the U.K. They’ve banded together to pool their talent, I think the idea being that if you one of them gets noticed, there’s a chance another of them might as well.

Looking through their work, I realized this was one extremely talented group of people. But the DWP is only once a week, and I wanted to be able to feature these young creatives faster then that. So Will and I plotted and planned and came up with a novel idea. We decided to release a wallpaper every weekday for the entire month of July. Monday through Friday, nonstop wallpapers, a constant stream of beautiful art.

The wallpapers I’ve received are pretty amazing, and I’m sure many of you will be finding new favorite artists over the next month. I’ve also decided on a different format for these artists. I’ve asked them some basic information about themselves and to describe their wallpapers, just to give a bit of insight. I can’t wait to show you all the rad stuff we have in store. Their styles are all over the place and there’s definitely something here for everyone. I hope you enjoy the next month of wallpapers and we’ll see you back tomorrow.



Name: Ben Cain
Degree/College: BA (Hons) Illustration, University for the Creative Arts (Maidstone)
Website: www.bencain.co.uk

About Your Wallpaper:
Halfway through working on an idea that was really just an excuse for me to draw lots of wolves, I started to think about where the icons would go. I looked at my desktop, which is usually swamped with hundreds of different versions of whatever I’m working on at the moment – left dumped wherever I’d dragged them to – and I started again, trying to design a wallpaper that would work for messy desktop keepers, and letting the icons play a part in the image. I had a couple of scenarios in mind, but I got into drawing divers, so that was that.



Name: Tom Edwards
Age: 21
Degree/College: I’m studying Illustration at the University of Brighton
Website: www.edwardstom.com

About Your Wallpaper:
My wallpaper has no real meaning to it other than the fact that all the little faces are more interested in the fancy gold jewels rather than the flowers and the brilliant colourful shrine.




Well whaddya’ know, it’s Wednesday already. This week’s artist is the fantastic Emily Eldridge, an artist and illustrator who’s currently living in Hong Kong. I think Emily may just be the first Hong Kong based artist to created a desktop wallpaper! Anyhow I fell in love with her style, her line work is really playful and she has a great sense of shape and color. Everything she does just evokes this really great positivity, something I absolutely agree with.

Emily was kind enough to give away two wallpapers this week, each of them being inspired by the city of Hong Kong. The first was her “interpretation of a vintage-y junk shop with random old electronics for sale”, which she also says she loves to explore and look around in. The second desktop was inspired be her morning commute, which she says there are, “a million people everywhere all the time – always jostling for space, moving quickly, and trying to walk in a straight line (impossible!) and of course, Mr. Fox is in the background, chilling & grabbing some wonton on the go!”

I love love love these, they feel like summer to me.


This week’s wallpaper is an absolute gem, I definitely should have released it yesterday. It’s by an artist that I discovered at New Image Art some time last year I think, who as soon as I saw their work I was completely blown away. His name is Cleon Peterson, a Los Angeles based painter who graduated from Art Center and is just amazing. Cleon uses a strict palette of neon pink, black and white, with the occasional splash of red. His style is intense and graphic, but it’s unlike anything else out there.

For his wallpaper he took a scan of one of his paintings for us. The scene is totally out of time and place, with people fighting, almost like a riot. I would love for someone with a cozy desk job to put this on their background and take a photo of their space, it would be amazing. I’ve also came up with three different iPhone versions, as I couldn’t decide which character to focus on. Enjoy the carnage.


As I was getting this week’s desktop wallpaper ready I realized that last week was Bosque, and this week is Bupla, both odd little B names. Oh well. Bupla is made up of Clémentine Dérodit and Mathieu Quiblier, a French artist and designer who make really cutesy characters and colorful art together. There’s just something about their style that totally grabs me and still feels really unique.

Their wallpaper is quite minimal and almost creepy. I really haven’t the faintest idea of what’s going on, but I love the soft focus and the muted colors. And the little critter by the tooth tree should definitely be made into some kind of plush figure. Enjoy!


Good morning everyone! So far it’s a much sunnier morning here in Los Angeles than it has the past few days, so I’m up early with your desktop wallpaper this week… or it might be the fact that my building is being fumgated, either/or… Anyhow, this week’s DWP contributors hail from Buenos Aires, Argentina, four illustrators and designers, two boys and two girls, who go by the name of Bosque. After I posted about them a few months back I had to ask them to participate, and so they did! They have an absolutely playful style and I was really excited to see what they came up with.

Thankfully they didn’t disappoint, supplying me with this wonderfully lo-fi papercut collage, featuring trees, clouds and mountains. A simple and idyllic scene to make your day a bit cheerier. Maybe it’ll inspire some of you to take an adventurous mountain trip this weekend!


Good Wednesday everyone, I hope you’re all having a good one. I’m really excited about today’s wallpaper, in fact, I only got it yesterday and I’m already posting it, that’s how excited I am. This week’s artist is the insanely talented and creative Thomas Allen. You may not know him by name, but if I told you he was that guy that makes really neat images out of cut-out book covers, then would you know him? I’ve been in love with his work for a while now, I’m enamored with the fact that he makes such great art with such simple materials.

His desktop is called ‘Infectious’, and features a man with his hand wrapped and slightly bloodied, looking quite concerned about the southern belle standing over his shoulder. It’s a great image that makes an equally great desktop wallpaper. Also, if you’re on a Mac, you may want to throw it into Preview, flip it horizontally and save it, that way your icons aren’t over there image.


Hey look, a desktop wallpaper that’s on time!
This week’s artist is the wonderfully talented, Deke Smith, an illustrator who lives and works in Vermont. I wasn’t quite sure about letting Deke do a wallpaper, but then I saw his drawing of 2Pac riding a unicorn… I mean, how could I say not this guy?! Seriously, Deke has a really great style, and always comes up with really fun characters.

For his wallpaper he went with a kind of fusion of styles, a collage of random people with a bunch of his drawings mixed in there. My favorite guy is the pyramid with the eyeball, mostly because I have something similar tattooed on my arm (I am not a Mason, thank you very much).











It’s Friday, not Wednesday, but I wanted to get these amazing wallpapers out and hopefully you can wake up with a fresh desktop wallpaper to start your weekend out right. This week I got the folks over at Studio Number One, the Los Angeles creative agency that was founded by Shepard Fairey, to create some wallpapers, so there are 5 to choose from.

This is the first time that I’ve gotten a group of people together to create some wallpapers, and I’m really excited how these turned out. The artists involved are Casey Ryder, Florencia Zavala, Jesselisa Moretti, Kristian Henson and Zach Gibson. You can see that their styles are really different from each other, so I’m guessing that you’ll find at least one wallpaper that you like.


Hey everyone, sorry for the lack of wallpapers for the last two weeks. I still have a ton of wallpapers to give away, in fact I’m going to have an ultra-crazy project coming up hopefully, so keep your eyes peeled for that. This weeks DWP artist is the lovely Ana Benaroya, a Baltimore artist who’s work is totally cheeky and fun. She has this really great European kind of style to her line work, and her color choices are always really loud but totally work. If you haven’t seen her work before you should definitely check it out.

I figured today was a good day to post her wallpaper because of how hot it is here in Los Angeles, so lots of buff dudes in speedos seem fitting. I laughed pretty hard when I saw this, and my favorite parts are the guy with the eyes and lips on his ass, and the pink guy with his long ponytail. So awesome.

I also just wanted to point out that I didn’t create a 1024 x768 or a 1280 x 1024 because I didn’t want to crop into her work. You can still download these other sizes though and your computer will figure it out.


Hey it’s Thursday already, so I’m a day behind, but I think you’ll all enjoy this week’s wallpaper a lot. It was created by Marco Zamora who’s a fellow Los Angeles resident, and a rather nice guy to boot. I posted about one of his prints a little while back and was fortunate to meet him at an art show as well. His use of black and white is really nice and his line work is very interesting as well.

His contribution to the DWP is really rad, and I’m hoping a lot of you bike riding kids enjoy it. It’s rad how he incorporates the city on the back of the guy, it’s kind of subtle but and doesn’t pop out at you right away. And that splash of red really makes the whole thing pop.






Good Thursday! The DWP is a day late this week because I honestly thought yesterday was Tuesday. I think it also had something to do with the fact that the blog was down all last week, so my internal clock is a bit off. Because of those two reasons, I thought I’d treat you all to a wallpaper bonanza! So lately I’ve been talking to this awesome guy Will Bryant (he looks like a giant, English rugby player) and we’ve been going back and forth talking about desktop wallpapers, he was sending me a bunch of ideas, and I thought, why not release a ton of these?

So today I’m releasing 5 wallpapers, some of which are hysterical, others may make your eyes bleed (one of the things Will and I laughed about). There titles, from top to bottom, are: Lesson Learned, Kittysune Noir, Wolf & Cereal Face, Cubes and What Up Noir?. I think the Kittysune one is absolutely hysterical, and currently my iPhone is rocking that ridiculous image. I hope you all enjoy these and thanks for being patient!




Hey all, Wednesday is here already. I’ve been sleepy all day, so I’m just getting to these awesome wallpapers, my apologies. This week’s desktop comes from the amazingly talented Jeffrey Bowman, an illustrator from London who’s definitely starting to blow up. He’s done work for Converse and Computer Arts, as well as being one half of the creative team over at The Wizard’s Hat. He’s also just recently updated his portfolio, so check that out as well.

For the DWP this week he’s created two wonderful wallpapers. The first is an explosion of shapes and colors, perfect for jazzing up a dark and lonely desktop. The second is nature-y looking collage of wooden logs and cloudy skies all presented in a cool-ish color palette.


The Desktop Wallpaper Project has obviously had quite a few artists, but last night I realized that I might have so many wallpapers that I’m losing track of one’s I haven’t posted! For example, today’s wallpaper is by one of my favorite artists out there, Damien Correll. It wasn’t until last night while I was going through the backgrounds on my iPhone that I realized that Damien had made me a sweet wallpaper, and I had completely forgotten about it. I even hassled him for a wallpaper like 2 weeks ago! haha… Anyhow, if you’ve never seen Damien’s work you’re totally missing out. His style is filled with sketchy but precise linework, bright colors, geometric shapes, and words and letters that test the boundaries of type design.

His wallpaper is an awesome mish-mash of patterns and textures which come together to create a sort of funky patchwork quilt. I think my favorite part of this are the colors because they make me feel like spring is slowly approaching, but not quite here yet. And I think that white block on the right looks like a Frosted Mini-Wheat.


This weeks wallpaper comes from English designer Jack Crossing, a young buck who’s creating a ton of rad stuff lately. You might remember his J shaped clothesline pins from last year, but he’s all over the place creatively.

He sent me two wallpapers, and this is actually the one he didn’t want me to post, but I thought it was really funny so I had to post it. I think personally this statement is already true, considering I spend probably 16 hours a day on my computer. But I also love the phrase “hell yeah”, it’s such an amazing bro phrase that I love to appropriate and use for my own evil ways. I hope ya’ll like it.


Well whaddya’ know. As of tomorrow, the Desktop Wallpaper Project is officially ONE YEAR OLD. On March 5th of last year, The Desktop Wallpaper Project was born, some crazy idea that I wasn’t sure would even work. But it’s been pretty successful so far, and I have all of you awesome readers to thank for that.

In honor of the DWP’s birthday, I wanted to release a very special wallpaper, one that I’ve been holding on to for quite a while, but wanted to release for something special. It was design by a guy named Puño, a Spanish illustrator working from Paris, who’s drawings I’m in love with. he has this really clean and simple style but it’s always really expressive and fun.

His wallpaper blew me out of the water, but I’m probably biased. These two hoodlums are obviously a part of a Black Fox gang! I want to be there friend and break bottles with them, haha… I hope you all have enjoyed the last year of wallpapers, here’s to another year!


Good morning and yay it’s already Wednesday! Today’s wallpaper is one of those gems that I’ve been hanging on to for a little while, so excited to share with everyone. It comes from the amazing Cody Hoyt, a master of turning chaos into beauty. When I first saw Cody’s work I was amazed by how much detail goes into each piece he creates, with random bits and bobs making a collective wonder.

For his wallpaper he created a totally beautiful wallpaper filled with a ton of wonderful shapes and filled with bright colors. He obviously knew how to make me happy. Be sure to check out the largest version of this to see all of the amazing details he put into this, it’s not to be missed.



Good Wednesday everybody! This week there’s a double header by a couple of amazing guys, Colby Nichols and Josh Kenyon, who work together under the moniker of Jolby. Though Colby lives in Portland and Josh lives in Chicago, they expertly manage to work together, creating some really epic and beautiful pieces.

The wallpapers above are preview of their upcoming show at the Subtext Gallery in San Diego called Home Is Where You Make It. The show is a narrative about “a boy named William who, after suffering a great loss, leaves his familiar town of Seaside to discover what “home” really means inside the depths of an aging forest.” From what I’ve seen of the show it’s going to be amazing. They’ve made around 40 silkscreened pieces, there will be plush dolls, and I’m sure a ton more awesome stuff.

The show opens this Saturday, February 21st, from 6-10pm, and runs until March 22nd, so if you happen to be in San Diego, be sure to stop by and check it out.
Click here for more details.


Hey hey it’s still Wednesday, and you all need a new desktop!
I’m totally stoked on this weeks wallpaper, it’s definitely one of the coolest I’ve ever featured. I got an email about a month ago from Scien of 123KLAN saying that he enjoyed the site. So I obviously had to take the opportunity to invite him and his wife Klor to participate in the project!

What they came up with was the awesome little guy you see above. As I do a lot of the time, the words of the artist sum this one up best:

As the temperature is very low over here,
We had to kill the “kitsune noir”
To make a typical canadian beanie with it,
we are sorry but we really had no other options…

So hysterical. I love the color palette, his Kitsune Noir jersey, his dunks, and the mustache especially. I hope you all enjoy this weeks wallpaper as much as me, and be sure to check back next Wednesday!


This weeks DWP is from Australian artist and +KN supporter ghostpatrol, who sometimes goes by the name of David as well. ghostpatrol draws a lot of cute/creepy kids, but does it in all kinds of fun mediums.

I’m also totally in love with this wallpaper. I love milkshakes, and this Link-looking, dagger-carrying fella is pretty rad looking, I kinda wish I dressed like that. I also love that it’s a print so you can see all the texture and details that make it so great looking. Plus there’s lots of room for your icons on the sides as well!


Good Thursday everyone! Sorry for the delay in the wallpaper, yesterday was hectic. But today is a wet and rainy day, perfect for the wallpaper that’s being released today! The wallpaper was made by the wonderful Gemma Correll, who draws just about the cutest little critters out there. The wallpaper was inspired by Gemma’s hatred for winter which tried to channel into something positive. In her own words, “I don’t really love winter, in fact I hate it – but I was kind of working on the concept of reverse psychology!”

I totally agree. I hope you all enjoy the wallpaper, and be sure to check out Gemma’s site if you’re not familiar with her work. Thanks again, Gemma!


Wednesday morning already?! This week has flown by for me, but I get to post a sweet wallpaper, so that’s good right? This week’s featured artist is the Finnish artist Pietari Posti, one of my absolute favorites. He’s currently working in Spain, doing a lot of illustrations for magazines like The NY Times, National Geographic and Playboy. He was also recently in the Now Showing project where people recreated awesome movie posters, which I posted about here.

His wallpaper is simple and beautiful feature a pattern of foxes (sidenote: a group of foxes is called a ’skulk’) all looking rather cute. I love the color palette for this, those blues are damn beautiful, so be sure to DL the iPhone version as well, it looks great. I’d also like to point out that there is only ONE black fox, which is true for blogs as well, haha… I hope everyone enjoys this weeks desktop!


I wanted to start the first wallpaper of 2009 off right, so I decided my roommate Garrett Vander Leun deserved the honor, since he’s an amazing illustrator and my BFF. Garrett was asked to do a piece by this college magazine called Algemeen Nijmeegs Studentenblad, the theme being about tall vs. small people, or something like that. So Garrett dug into his past and came up with some of his favorite characters from movies and TV, and pitted them in this epic battle.

I think my favorite parts are Ludo cutting up Andre the Giant, who in turn doesn’t give a shit and continues to beat on the coroner from Wizard of Oz. My other part is Hagrid who is almost accidentally crushing the Mayor of Oz, that dude is getting straight up MANGLED!


Good morning everybody. Sorry I missed out last week, but I have two fun surprises for this morning. The first is the awesome desktop you see above by Mr. Adrian Fleet, a UK illustrator who wrote to tell me that we were connected in three rather odd ways. He also sent me a link to his work which features all sorts of weird ass monster-y people, all of them colored in with this great color palette he uses.

The wallpaper above is Adrian’s “entirely depressing and pessimistic view of the Earth”, though he says, “I’ve managed to make it look laughable. (I never could take myself seriously).” I couldn’t agree more. I’m so in love with all he craggly little details he’s put into this, there’s seriously so much going on here, I’m sure people will definitely do a double take when they pass by your screen.

Bobby


Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I didn’t forget the DWP this week, I just wanted to wait till today to release a special Thanksgiving edition wallpaper done by Mr. Craig Redman. I’m a big fan of Craig’s work, whether it’s the things he creates with Australia’s finest design outfit, Rinzen, or on his personal (auto-biographical?) project Darcel Disappoints, he’s always crafting up some creative goodness.

This weeks wallpaper features the always hysterical Darcel in a piece Craig calls ‘Thanksgiving Under Duress’. Darcel is rocking a Native American head dress while old-timey guns are pointed his way… what a way to celebrate the holiday! I love love love this wallpaper, and it looks REALLY awesome on my iPhone, just want to throw that out there. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving, and I’ll be back to posting by Monday at the latest!

Bobby


Good morning everyone, so glad that’s already Wednesday… alright it’s Thursday, I’m a liar and a day behind! Better late then never is hopefully what you’re all saying to yourselves! This weeks artist has been a favorite of mine for years now, first catching my eye with images of dance parties filled with yetis, elves, crystals, break dancing, Star Wars characters, all done in needle point. Her name is Meg Whitmarsh and she’s not only handy with needle and thread, but she’s also an awesome illustrator as well.

Meg was nice enough to grace us with one of her dance parties. It’s all done with colored pencils and features an awesome chick jamming out on the keyboard while a yeti chills out and smokes a cigarette. I think this one makes a perfect desktop, lots of colors and lots of room for your icons. I think I’m gonna come out with two desktops next week, one will be a special edition one of something that’s been floating around the web for a while… but you’ll have to wait and see!






Good morning everyone! First off I just wanted to say sorry for not putting up the DWP the last two weeks. I really have no excuse

Related Posts Widget for Blogs by LinkWithin