Thread: The Complete Guide to Desktop Customization

The Complete Guide to Desktop Customization
By Sheepseh
(pictures from google images)
NOTE: As far as I can tell, there is no other thread out there like this. There is one about how to theme your PC using software, but not necessarily a resource guide.

Welcome to my guide on desktop customizing. I don't claim to be an expert, but instead a person who has a lot of time on their hands and spends it on endlessly scourging through the latest skins and wallpapers.

Table of Contents:
I. Introduction
II. Wallpapers
III. Mac
IV. PC
V. TBC

I often find my friends asking me "Oh bananaman, where did you get so and so wallpaper/icon/theme/etc?" and I end up redirecting them to one of my bookmarked resources. But then I started thinking, why don't I make a tutorial so all of this wonderful community can ALSO have amazing desktops, like they deserve. This sparked the complete guide to desktop Customization.

I'm going to divide my tutorial into three sections: Mac, Wallpaper & PC.
This is because most customization sites are catered to certain OSs, with the exception being wallpaper sites.

Wallpaper

Interfacelift
InterfaceLIFT: Wallpaper sorted by Date

Interfacelift is renowned throughout the customizing community for having a large selection of wallpapers, from various categories. Their UI also makes the experience much more user friendly and inviting, allowing first time users to easily pick a wallpaper for their exact resolution and ratio.


Deviantart
deviantART: where ART meets application!

Deviantart is one of the biggest, and most established names in the business. Their community is infamous for delivering top notch art. The interface provides a good medium, where fellow artists can critique work, providing insight and constructive criticism.

Socialwallpapering
http://socwall.net

Socialwallpapering isn't very well known as it is simply a digg-like site where people like or dislike wallpapers, but this simplisity also makes it worthwhile. It has a lasting repository of wallpapers, which can be viewed by rank, size or ratio. It even has a random wallpaper function, which has on many occasions helped me out.


-TBC-
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Mac

MacThemes
MacThemes

Macthemes. Old macthemes. Time and time again, macthemes has been an essential community for mac users everywhere. Its community is simply amazing, bringing together professional artists, with the casual designers who make icons to have fun. Macthemes provides Mac themes, icons, docks, wallpapers, and much more. It also has a iPhone community, which provides similar material.

iconpaper
iconpaper

Iconpaper is another new face on the scene. Their devs scour the interweb for fresh content, which if they find suitable, is featured on their site. They are very through, with their content leading me to amazing sites I may have never heard of. I can always depend on Iconpaper to give me fresh new material when I want to change up my system. Their UI also makes browsing through material easy and quick, as it provides a minimal yet functional appearance.

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PC


Deviantart
deviantART: where ART meets application!

Although this may be a repeat, it deserves a mention in the PC category as it has an extremely active PC uprising of its own. The lack of established PC customization forums has left many artists going to deviantart to share and publish my work. I just got a PC, and I found deviantart to suit my needs and provide me with a perfectly functional and appealing desktop.

TBC as I find more sites
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Footnote:
This thread WILL be continued. This is somewhat a first draft. Expect more in the following days.

Good post, include docks and other software based customization in the posts you come up with =)

bumpity bump

Nice Thread, you just helped me add a couple more websites to my wallpaper list.

Thanks for the thread, it will come in handy.

No problem, be sure to post back with your results if you want.

whenever i get bored of my current desktop first i check customize.org. i just looked at now after seeing your thread.here is some examples that what you can do

WOW. Is that rainmeter or samurize?

Rainmeter, objectdock(or rocketdock) + custom icons, CDArt display etc... :)