Free Stuff - Backgrounds

I change my desktop background about as often as I change my pants, there’s a once a day minimum on pants/background changing. In the before times I used to flip through the same 50 or so collected backgrounds I had snagged from around the Internet over the last 10 years or so. Last week I had a considerable amount of downtime so I decided that in lieu of just simply changing my desktop I’d make my own, after all I had the time and needed to do something that could be construed as at least mildly productive. After doing the first one I was hooked, I platformed two of my favorite addictions, making stuff and desktop backgrounds. Why this didn’t happen earlier I really cant say but its happened and here I am to share the fruits of my labor on less then busy days. All backgrounds are made for 1600×1200 resolution and some are a little large, in the 1.5mb+ range,  and all were made in CS4 Illustrator.

Texted :

Started off as a text collage, I then got really copy happy, then angry with the brush tool. The results - you can almost read the word GROK, and somewhere in there there’s colours that aren’t black, white or grey.

Fake :

Similar to Texted but much more brush happy, maybe to the point of overkill, then again it only took about 10mins from idea to finish. The results - you can almost read “do what you must”  and the whole things been combed with the Warp Tool into an ink splattered mess.

Understood :

Unabashed company plugging meets 1000 vector lines. The results - Take two vector lines, press W set yourself to 1000 steps and its go time, the monogram G and tag-line set under a moire pattern, class condensed.

Wasted :

More fun with the blend tool and the division of space, originally named wasted as in wasted time, took a while to become happy with this one . The results - descending blocks of blended vectors, gentle divisions and a warm comfy colour palate give you a big minimalistic hug to set your day in the right direction.

-Adam

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Why Sci-Fi?

Many of you are probably asking yourself why I would be writing blogs about science fiction. Is this not a design blog? Well this blog is about understanding things from a new perspective, grokking. We hope that you will come to grok us on some level through this blog, and perhaps you will see how many different elements have an effect on hour work.

For me science fiction is almost a religion. I do not pray to some Sci-Fi god of chrome and steel, but I have been raised on it in many ways. Science fiction has had a profound effect on shaping my moral code and the other many ways in which I perceive the universe. I am not unique in this, when you think of the cell phone, a machine essential to the United States today; you should consider it was inspired by Gene Rodenberry’s Star Trek. Sci-Fi has had a profound effect on our culture.

As a young body I watched taped episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation every Saturday with my father. As a doctor he worked a great deal, and I looked forward to the times we spent together watching Star Trek and talking about the future, or just what might happen in the series. I was not allowed to watch much TV; none during the week, an hour or two of Saturday morning cartoons, and Star Trek with my dad. My parents, through the mistake of putting a TV in my room, learned early on that I was an entertainment junky, and took steps to correct that. Even now, though I rarely indulge this behavior, I see how I could easily be addicted to entertainment. I have spent whole days playing a video game, reading a book, or watching a TV series.

When I learned to read, there was no stopping me. One can not hide a television set (at least not in the 80s), but one can hide a book. My mother would tell me to go to sleep for the third time in an hour, turn out the light, and watch to make sure I went to bed. I would wait in silence for ten minutes or so (what seemed like hours to a 8 year old), and then I would grab this huge flashlight (12 volt battery powered) nestle it between my head and shoulder, throw the blanket over us (being sure to prop the sides a little for air flow) and read until my neck and back hurt enough to force me to bed. I was highly prone to neck cramps that made me hold my head in awkward positions for long days. These were attributed to growing pains.

I am something of an expert in science fiction. I have read everything on the Peter Sykes’ Top 100 Statistical Survey List, all the series that branch off from those books, and a score of other novels, novellas, and short stories. I have read much fantasy, but mostly science fiction. This is not all that I have spent my time reading by any stretch of the imagination. Science fiction has leaded me to an appreciation of history, science, art, literature, philosophy, etcetera. Noted science fiction writer Isaac Asimov said:

“Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinder critics and philosophers of today - but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation if we are to be saved at all.”

“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.”

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