Designing Desktop Wallpaper

[eriual]

Does anyone have any advice for designing destop wallpaper? I have to do this for my school and I used a picture of the campus, made the edges a little darker so the icons stand out. I still got a comment from one person saying their icons are lost in the pattern. Meanwhile I have had the background on my desktop for over a month now and not had any issues. My questions are - what guidelines do you try to follow? this has to work with mac & pc - do you clear a spot on the left for pc icons and one on the right for make icons?

Any advice would be helpful. I feel like saying you can either have a picture or solid background. Everyone's desktop is different! I have icons on the left/right and middle. I feel like I can't accommodate everyone.

[CkretAjint]

I think the biggest hurdle would be screen size. I use a wide format screen, so for something on my screen that works perfectly, might not on someone else's who does not 'fit to screen' their background.

This is my desktop:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2257/2193367585_48bc212379.jpg

[captain spanky]

yeah ideally you'd need to do different versions for different resolutions. I make a lot of desktops for people and commercially, the most important aspect is plenty of negative space imo. I have a few personal desktops on my site (under 'downloads') if you'd like to take a look. :)

[Jam]

My company governs the desktops here - they post notices and information on them. You can change them but everytime you restart your PC they convert back. Its a pain!!

[CkretAjint]

Wow Jam, that really SUCKS!!!

[eriual]

Well, I have the resolutions straight. I'm just talking about avoiding certain locations of the monitor because or x, y or z. For instance, I designed a background a few years ago and it is still in use however, now some new machines have Windows Vista on it and the Widgets are directly over our logo. So now I plan on not putting any logos in the upper right corner for PC or on the left hand side because that is generally where the icons are displayed. It seems like there are less and less places you safely put a logo without getting in the way of something on the desktop and since everyone can customize their desktop, how can I design a background for everyone?

[CkretAjint]

how can I design a background for everyone?

You just have to design one for the general public and if it HOPE that they are able to use it. Since there are no standards with icon placement it is tough to place items along the side and be safe. EVERY desktop in the world is different, so to design one for everyone is tough. Hence why the majority of new computer background do not have text and logos pasted all over them...

[Typically]

how about putting the logo right in the middle of the desktop right above the task bar? when i do desktops i put a link to my webpage right above the task bar somewhere in the middle to avoid icons/widgets covering it (which doesn't always work because my boss has his resolution too 800x600 i think and has his task bar double tall) like everyone else has said every desktop is going to be different, try to find a happy medium or do a few different sizes for larger/wide monitors if you don't want to chance it.

[eriual]

Thanks for all the advice. The complaint I got was actually related to the picture and not the logos. I decided to compromise and make a larger area of darkness on both the left (for pc) and right (for mac) so as to aid in readability of icons that are the desktop. Hopefully that will be acceptable.

I guess what was really frustrating is that this desktop will be deployed on computers that we control - we control the resolutions, the placement of icons, etc on the desktop. So I thought that I should use that as a starting point for readability of icons - since there are only going to be 4 on desktop. The problem is that the people who are reviewing the desktop set it as their own desktop and they have icons that take up half the screen. My feeling is that if people really use the desktop like that, they are problem going to change the background to a solid color anyway.

[jonfisher]

Desktops are best if kept simple. Complicated scenic photos make the desktop look cluttered.

Then again, my desktop is overly simple. I just use a solid color fill R:128 G:128 B:128.