(Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers

• By Vitaly Friedman
• February 12th, 2008
• Wallpapers
• 264 Comments

Desktop wallpapers always come in handy. The more inspirational, beautiful and elegant they are, the better they can challenge our imagination and provide some fresh perspective in a rather tedious and monotonous workflow. However, desktop wallpapers sometimes can go far beyond offering colorful eye-candy; sometimes desktop wallpapers include calendars, funny cartoons and logos of favourite tools, services and companies. The latter is particularly true for Apple-fans and Microsoft-haters as well as for Google, Twitter and Firefox-users.

In this post we present stunning desktop wallpapers related to typography, art, technology, photography and abstract themes. Among other things we review calendar wallpapers, minimalistic wallpapers, wallpapers-illustrations and themes for Apple, Microsoft, Twitter and Google-fans. Each of the links leads to huge wallpapers archives where you can find even more excellent wallpapers. All screenshots are clickable and lead to the pages where they can be downloaded.

You might want to take a look at the posts

• Smashing Magazine’s Quality Design Wallpapers
  A growing collection of professional desktop wallpapers in various resolutions, with or without a calendar for the upcoming month. Released in the end of every month.
• Selected Wallpapers For Your Desktop which covers wallpapers, devkits, Flickr pools, Widescreen and HD-monsters and even wallpapers-related social communities and wallpapers for gamers,
• 100 (Really) Beautiful iPhone Wallpapers
• Beautiful Dual-Screen Desktop Wallpapers
• 100 Creepy Hand-Picked Horror Wallpapers

Typography Wallpapers

I Love Typography Wallpapers
18 wallpapers dedicated to typography-lovers. Including iPhone Typography Wallpapers.

Veer Wallpapers
A growing collection of (not only) typography-related wallpapers in a variety of resolutions — from 320×480 (iPhone) to 1920×1200. Free registration is required to download the wallpapers.

I Love Typo Wallpaper
1024×768.

Art Wallpapers

Wallcoo Wallpapers
Hundreds of beautiful high-quality wallpapers from China. Stunning!

Ton3 Calendar Wallpapers
Every month Patricia Villanueva releases a new desktop background for the coming calendar month. It’s in Spanish, but beauty speaks all languages.

Design Wallpapers
By ndesign. 9 themes, a variety of resolutions.

JuneWind
30 colorful wallpapers available in numerous resolutions.

Happy Diwali! Wallpaper
Scroll to the end of the page. 800×600, 1024×768, 2000×1500.

Design is… Wallpaper Flickr Pool
A collection of wallpapers dedicated to design: designers explain what design is.

Freelanceswitch Wallpapers
4 wallpapers, 1920×1200, 1600×1200, 1280×1024, 1152×864, 1024×768

Rabbit Wallpaper
1280×960.

David Lanham’s Art Wallpapers
Over 20 art wallpapers in different sizes (widescreen — 1600×1200 and fullscreen — 1680×1050). Unique, and unusual.

Customize.org
A growing collection of wallpapers in the Deviantart’s style. User-generated content on over 900 pages. That’s going to take some time to browse through.

The Elemental Wallpaper
The Elemental: water extinguishes fire, fire entraps air, air encompasses Earth, Earth is the mother of all. 1024×768.

Oh Lolliop! It’s a desktop wallpaper
A wallpaper coming in 6 resolutions: from 1024×768 up to 1900×1200 px.

Bloody Hippy Wallpaper
Bloody Hippy, available in enourmo-scope 1920×1200 resolution.

Lothaleng Robot Wallpaper
1024×768.

Top 10 Gaming Wallpapers
All at 1920×1200 HD resolution, and a stunning image quality. There’s a link the the Flickr page of each wallpaper as well.

Apple, Windows, Google & Co.

Leopard Wallpapers
Wallpapers for designers, developers and bloggers who use Leopard. Wallpapers currently come in the following dimensions: 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×960, 1600×1200. If none of the above suits you, get your own personalized Leopard wallpaper.

Simpsons OS X Wallpaper
Homer seems to be pretty hungry. Simpsons Mac Os X Wallpaper, Aqua.

Apple Love Wallpaper
Well, that’s pretty stylish. For Apple-lovers. 1024×640, 1920×1200.

Conquer The Universe Wallpaper
A galaxy background with Apple logo to honor the birth of Leopard. 1920×1200. Non-Apple-version is also available (also good for dual display).

Twitter Wallpaper
1280×800.

Google Wallpaper
1024×768. Light-version.

Technology Dekstop Nexus
The Elemental: water extinguishes fire, fire entraps air, air encompasses Earth, Earth is the mother of all. 1024×768.

Leopard Server Aurora Wallpaper
1024 x 640, 2560 x 1600

Firefox Desktop Wallpaper
46 Firefox Desktop Wallpapers in different sizes and colors.

iPhone Wallpapers
7 320×480 iPhone wallpapers.

30 Nice Mac OS X Wallpapers
After searching high and low, here’s some good 30 Apple-related wallpapers (Apple logo, MacOS, iPod) that’s definitely worth a look.

Vista Wallpapers Pack
These wallpapers come in 3 different style — Vista curves, Silky embossed and Corporate clean. 2 high resolution formats – 1600×1400 px and 1920×1200 px.

Photographic Wallpapers

Fantastic Free Wallpaper Images
An impressive selection of free crystal clear wallpapers. 8 different resolutions, up to 2560×1600.

Above the clouds
You’ll need to change the size of the image to place it on your desktop. More beautiful photos in the Flickr: Awesome Pictures Pool, Flickr: Better Than Good Pool and Golden Stars Flickr Pool

Flickr: Wallpapers and Backgrounds Pool
Over 9,000 photos available as wallpapers for your desktop. Every month the “Wallpaper of the Month” is selected.

Flickr: Wallpapers Pool
24,000 various desktop wallpapers. Minimum resolution: 1024×768.

Lightning at the night
You’ll need to change the size of the image to place it on your desktop. More beautiful photos in the Flickr: Awesome Pictures Pool

Beautiful Photographic Wallpapers
A set of 25 excellent photographic wallpapers which can be downloaded as a .zip-archive. Bonus: Second Pack.

Abstract Wallpapers

Flow Wallpaper
“Flow” comes in two variants: a single display one with a resolution of 2560×1600px and a dual screen one with a resolution of 2×1920×1200px. A bunch of iPhone/iPod touch compatible variants is added to the package.

Strukt Wallpaper
1024×640, 2560×1600.

Colorcharge
Three wallpapers. Format: 2000×1440 px.

Outta Space
Four wallpapers in the resolution 2560×1600 px

Disruption
4 wallpapers designed by Till Nowak. 1600×1200, 1280×1024 and 1024×768.

What’s your favourite?

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