Five Great Sources for Aesthetically Delightful Desktop Wallpaper

Deteriorating eyesight. Rapidly shortening attention span. Fiery hatred of rolling green hillsides, tulips basking in midday sunshine, outer space explosions and abstract line configurations. These are just a few of the side-effects of spending the majority of one's waking weekday hours planted in front of a computer screen. Fortunately, changing your desktop from cliche to clever is a bit quicker than a trip to LensCrafters, and certainly easier than retraining your e-brain. It's also much, much cheaper. Here are five of the best sources for aesthetically delightful—and totally free—desktop wallpaper on the Internet. Right click away!

Kindred
Each season, bloggers Ex Pudewa and Holly Becker ask a few of their favorite young artists to design a desktop image around a given theme. The results are lovely—like Traci French's dreamy, slightly crinkled summer '09 contribution—and often for sale as frame-worthy prints in the designers' Etsy shops.

Marimekko
From the world's greatest Finnish textile company comes the world's greatest Finnish textile wallpapers. This print, Matkala maalle, has been my go-to desktop for almost a year now. (Yes, I have a go-to desktop wallpaper. If you don't understand this compulsion—well, frankly, I'm surprised you're still reading this list.)


Veer
Our pals at Metaleap are quite fond of this online design-collaboration site's selection of wallpapers, which are free once you register. The archives date back to 2002—this one from 2006, "Woodgrain Crowd," is really cool.

Pixelgirl Presents
Most designs teeter between childish and borderline-NSFW, but man, sometimes you just need some gleeful, anthropomorphic fruit to brighten your afternoon.

Kitsune Noir
Designer Bobby Solomon wrangles one artist per week to craft an image for this series, and the results are beautiful, creepy and sometimes kind of hilarious. This chaotic scene of soda-chugging skaters besot by zombie skulls (by Ben Aslett) is a recent favorite, but make sure to check out the archive.