I remember being hard at work on my 1985 Macintosh (9” black-and-white screen) while what passed for social media at the time (CompuServe) was all abuzz about desktop wallpaper and screen savers. I remember thinking at the time that it was a silly idea: this was a tool for work, I’d no more decorate my desktop than I’d paint flowers on my framing hammer.
I quickly changed my mind. I realized that I hung art on my walls (and, yes, much more than the Grateful Dead poster I thumbtacked up in my teens), I planted decorative plants in my garden. I paid attention to the view out my windows. Given that the OG Mac screen was small and monochrome (as in black-and-white, not even grayscale), there were some amazing wallpapers to be had. I spent a lot of time staring at that screen and, even though a single window would likely cover almost all of the desktop, it really did improve the quality of my life to have something attractive there to look at.
Now screens are much larger and support wide color gamuts. Currently on my big screen (32”, rather small by today’s standards) I have my son’s annotated weather balloon photo. On my high-resolution laptop screen, I have the view from the shower at night. My lock screen is the view from the back deck of the island place. Other times I have pictures of my family.
I find that I enjoy these images enough that I often close or hide windows just to show off the desktop more. I think it helps me keep my work space less cluttered.
Oh, and at the island place I have a hammer painted with flowers.
—2p