Smashing Magazine - we smash you with the information that will make your life easier. really.
Desktop Wallpaper Calendar: Join in!
Few weeks ago we’ve presented a wallpaper calender for March 2008 — a desktop wallpaper designed by Patricia Villanueva, a 29-year-old graphics designer from Mexico-City. We’ve stumbled upon Patricia’s works which have impressed us by her bold, intriguing, crazy, personal, but genuinely creative and unusual style. Being fair, we would also like to give you the opportunity to present your work in our magazine.
[Offtopic: by the way, did you already get your copy of the brand new Smashing Book?]
How do I participate?
You have some excellent ideas for a desktop wallpaper? We are genuinely curious what you’ll come up with. Please consider the following guidelines:
- choose any theme you like — typography, art, abstract, illustration, photography — it’s up to you, but the calendar should be in English,
- design a wallpaper in the following resolutions (as many as possible, minimum 5): most popular resolutions are 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1680×1050, 1440×900 and 1024×768 px, 1920×1200 and 320×480px (iPhone) (please notice step 5).
- design wallpapers in two versions: the ones which contain a calendar for the upcoming month (in March only wallpapers with April calendars will be accepted) and the ones which don’t contain it (so the wallpapers remain useful even years after they’ve been released),
- make sure the wallpapers contain a Smashing Magazine logo (.zip, updated, 0.68 Mb) which is clearly visible on all wallpapers; you may also place your logo on the wallpaper if you want to,
- download this form (.zip, with a plain text-file form.txt inside) and fill it in (it is a necessary step),
- name your files according to the format “month-year-title_of_the_theme-[calendar/nocal]-resolution.[jpg/png]“. Examples: “october-08-sad-autumn-calendar-1680x1050.jpg” (with calendar) and “october-08-sad-autumn-nocal-1680x1050.jpg” (without calendar). Files with wrong file names will be removed!
- send the e-mail with your wallpapers and the form.txt-file at the latest two days before the end of a month at contest@smashingmagazine.com with the subject “[Desktop Wallpaper Calendar] Month, Theme_title”,
- wallpapers which will be featured in our magazine will be available for free download and will contain a link to the artist’s blog or portfolio.
What do we expect?
Please feel free to browse through our selection of desktop wallpapers to get the intuition behind what is needed to get featured on Smashing Magazine. Please consider that not every wallpaper will be published as we’ll carefully analyze each work and will select only those wallpapers which have some creative and artistic potential. In order to be featured, the wallpapers need to have some idea, not the pure advertising of a designer who created it.

A desktop wallpaper from our recent selection.
The wallpapers will be published in the beginning of every month for the next 12 months. Notice that we respect the ideas and motivation behind artists’ work which is why we give you the full freedom to explore your creativity through your work. And this is also why the theme of the wallpaper isn’t anyhow influenced by us, but designed from scratch by yourself.
Feel free to design bold, intriguing, crazy, personal, but creative, unusual and absolutely stunning wallpapers.
Smashing designing, folks!
The team here at Smashing Magazine. Mostly Sven & Vitaly.
- 88 Comments
- 1
- 2
March 19th, 2008 7:27 amSounds awesome! Hopefully I can find some time.
- 3
March 19th, 2008 7:30 amgreat idea … waiting for results …
- 4
March 19th, 2008 7:39 amCool, this sounds fun, I might have a go later.
- 5
March 19th, 2008 7:45 amSounds great will give some of my wallpapers a go.
cheers
jon
- 6
March 19th, 2008 8:00 amYou’re design work is amazing, i am loving the wallpapers – i’m probably no match tho ;-(
- 7
March 19th, 2008 8:45 amThe smashing magazine logo isn’t very usefull, because of the white background and none vector.
- 8
March 19th, 2008 9:00 amThis is because last months was shit isn’t it?
Hmmm maybe ill create one with Elephants and Handbags…
- 9
March 19th, 2008 9:02 amHopefully I’ll get a free afternoon to submit something.
- 10
March 19th, 2008 9:44 amGreat idea, I won’t miss the contest this time!
- 11
March 19th, 2008 10:09 amGood Idea.. So the readers can also participate with the SM Journey
- 13
March 19th, 2008 12:12 pmI sense jealousy.
- 14
March 19th, 2008 1:10 pm@Vitaly & Sven: lol touche!
My apologies all, good luck to everyone who enters I look forward to seeing some great talent this month! :)
- 15
March 19th, 2008 2:33 pmFun stuff. However, it would be nice to remove the white easily from the logo.
- 16
March 19th, 2008 3:50 pmIf Smashing Magazine would organize the calendar naming structure, I bet the script could be modified to work.
Mac only.
Here is an action/script that sets your desktop to the current calendar. http://www.fairlyuseless.com
- 17
March 20th, 2008 1:34 amwow..nice…i hope there’s a girly wallpaper calendar
- 18
March 20th, 2008 4:01 amBut is isn’t vector based so it looks not that nice if you desing in Illustrator.
- 19
March 20th, 2008 5:25 amThirded or fourthed the request for a Vectorial Smashing Magazine Logo.
- 20
March 20th, 2008 6:56 amHaha… yeah, you said it!
- 21
March 20th, 2008 7:50 amGreat..I will surely join
- 22
March 20th, 2008 8:20 amI don’t suppose there is a specific RSS feed to view the submissions? I didn’t see one…
- 24
March 20th, 2008 12:11 pmLook forward to the results.
- 25
March 22nd, 2008 4:54 amwow..nice…
- 26
March 23rd, 2008 11:52 pmSounds awesome! I will surely join…
- 27
March 24th, 2008 11:10 pmAre we allowed to post our entries on our own blog or deviantArt or are they supposed to be Smashing Magazine only downloads?
- 28
March 24th, 2008 11:53 pmI’ll try to give it a go too.
I like the concept!I really look forward to seing all the different contributions.
- 29
March 25th, 2008 3:10 pmAwesome! I’m absolutely going to get busy with this one!
- 31
March 26th, 2008 4:42 amUhm…
I didn’t really get the email-adress where I should send my work to? - 32
March 26th, 2008 8:08 pmsandie, it’s the bit in italic in point 8:
editor at smashingmagazine dot com
Just replace the small words with the bits that you know are supposed to go in an email address. - 33
March 27th, 2008 11:27 pmthanks…
I knhow about the dot com, but I don’t knw about “editor at SM”- how do I write that as an email? - 35
June 1st, 2008 1:27 amYes, I’ll definetely join!
Never done a desktop wallpaper before but I think that I can come up with a really girly fashion inspired wallpaper! :) - 36
July 1st, 2008 1:24 amwill try to participate too.
cheers. - 37
August 2nd, 2008 1:53 amJust sent mine in…. Phantasmagorical!!
- 38
September 2nd, 2008 7:29 amI’ve just realised how much I admire your comments design and style, the colours and design are very calm and respective to the page content, however your current footer is a bit rough- header is graphical why not the footer?
I’ll try to enter when I get time too, just one more question:
Is your site a blog, like run by wordpress or something? It is really cool and I love your site. - 39
September 5th, 2008 6:50 ami was wondering if we can only use the S as a logo, as i tried to design a wallpaper and if i only use the S then it would fit nicely in the overall image and if i use the “smashing magazine” as well then i would need to love it around,
thanks
- 40
September 8th, 2008 3:36 amheytttt
- 41
October 4th, 2008 9:45 amMac doesn’t like 31+ characters in the file name. Anyway we can get a different file naming format?
- 42
October 15th, 2008 5:50 amCount me in! :-)
- 43
October 16th, 2008 6:10 amI am in!
- 44
October 29th, 2008 1:47 amplz tell me that what is the email, where the wallpapers have to sent,
plz tell me.
- 45
November 2nd, 2008 2:28 pmI’ve been a huge fan of SM wallpapers, expect a submission for December :)
- 46
November 28th, 2008 9:19 amSent them now..wondering if it isn’t too late!
- 47
December 31st, 2008 1:16 amI will join and submit my artwork here..thanks man!
- 48
January 3rd, 2009 8:28 am“write a brief description of the wallpaper, the motivation behind the design, the country you come from and your URL”
- should we put that in a .txt file or write it in the email?
- 49
January 4th, 2009 1:32 amInstead of participating as an individual, can I participate as a company?
- 50
January 10th, 2009 4:16 amits really nice..!!!!
- 51
February 13th, 2009 3:26 pmCan we submit more than one?
- 52
February 28th, 2009 1:55 amGreat, I love your wallpapers!
- 53
March 9th, 2009 7:57 pmthey quite good.
Thanks. - 54
March 28th, 2009 6:36 amI just post my wallpapers with calendars for April2009!
Hope you will enjoy.
- 55
March 29th, 2009 10:54 pmI’ll give it a try.. even though I don’t think I’ll have a fighting chance against the other SM users. :D
- 56
April 6th, 2009 2:58 amOh! Yeees! Very nice! :)
- 57
April 11th, 2009 5:21 amhow can i find a calendar template for photoshop (.psd file) ?
- 58
April 27th, 2009 1:39 pmShame there’s no SVG logo file [:
- 59
April 30th, 2009 10:25 amhello,
i need to know how to place my wallpaper in your account .
- 60
June 1st, 2009 1:45 amThe requirement of having a ’smashing magazine logo’ dissuades me from using calendar wallpapers as desktop wallpapers. Maybe the requirement could be reconsidered, or possibly the logo placed near edge of wallpaper so as to be unobtrusive. Thanks
- 61
July 2nd, 2009 4:55 amCool… :D
- 62
July 5th, 2009 11:58 pmis .ai file of your logo can recognized by Photoshop CS 2??
- 63
July 8th, 2009 4:04 pmI’m working on mine at the moment – is it still required to have the nocal versions? The calendar is a necessary part of my design grid ^_^ It might look strange with something else in there.
- 64
July 14th, 2009 6:44 pmMy birthday is in August :-)
- 65
July 22nd, 2009 5:55 amgreat… i will try to create one to participate!
- 66
July 31st, 2009 8:54 amAre you gonna give away prizes for selected entries?
- 67
August 29th, 2009 7:57 amGreat!
@ SM: I want to send my wallpapers to you but I didn’t find any link or email address to send my work for feature from two hours, please help me. Thanks in advance & sorry for my bad english.
- 68
September 30th, 2009 8:48 pmFantastic idea- I love getting my desktop images from this site every month but I live in Australia and it seems they all relate to American Public holidays/ weather etc. Can someone please come up with somthing that related to Australia! :) Cheers
- 69
October 23rd, 2009 5:34 amI have tried several times to send some files to the contest@smashingmagazine address, but it keeps coming back as exceeding the size limit. I am sending a 2.3 mb zipped file which is still coming back as too big. Anyone know another solution?
- 70
October 27th, 2009 2:47 amwill surely join
- 71
October 30th, 2009 6:47 amtwo days before the next month.. so can i send my design today? or is not considered two days ? or is it 30- 31- 1 help?
- 72
November 11th, 2009 1:20 amJust found out this… will send a design for december ;)
- 73
November 12th, 2009 5:07 amwould be nice to add 1024×600 for netbooks… I always struggle to find good wallpapers for my netbook.
- 74
November 16th, 2009 6:58 amVery nice! Im in!
- 75
January 1st, 2010 2:39 pmhmm i still confused how to join..
- 76
January 4th, 2010 4:43 amGreat Idea – Need to have our creative juices flowing:-)
Can I still join the contest and what is the last date of submission?thanks
- 77
January 9th, 2010 9:29 am#7 :
send the e-mail with your wallpapers and the form.txt-file at the latest two days before the end of a month at contest@smashingmagazine.com with the subject “[Desktop Wallpaper Calendar] Month, Theme_title”,
- 77
- 78
January 12th, 2010 11:39 pmIf i can edit the form.txt file and add more resolution images?
eg: 1360×768 [x]is it needed?
- 79
January 13th, 2010 8:12 pmwow, breathtaking. keep up good work, folks! you are one of a kind!
- 80
January 29th, 2010 1:17 amlike this ,I’LL jion this team
- 81
January 29th, 2010 1:45 amhello every one where can I change my avatar……^ ^
- 82
January 30th, 2010 8:07 amExcellent magazine and terrific idea! Since found, I use these wallpapers monthly. Hope to join in soon!
Q: Which FORMAT do I use to include the wallpapers in the Submission Email?
1- Email a ‘.zip’ file containing the wallpapers.
2- Email a link to download the ‘.zip’ file containing the wallpapers.
3- Email with links to download each wallpaper.The ‘.zip’ containing all wallpapers could exceed a providers email attachment size limit. :(
A: ?
- 83
January 31st, 2010 11:37 amHi,
I just made a calendar wallpaper for this month and now I want to show off my work.
Would be great if you can comment on this one!
Do you like it? Do you hate it? Tell me because I would like to join this monthly!Here´s the link http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/5493/februaryy.png
Greetings.
- 84
January 31st, 2010 11:22 pmThis was really a nice idea.
- 85
February 1st, 2010 7:04 pmok i may be a little slow . . . but if i was to submit a calendar in the next few weeks it would have to be for march or april??? and in total i would really need 14 files (different sizes and the two versions, one with a calendar and one without)
- 86
February 1st, 2010 8:07 pmi will join one day!!
- 87
February 2nd, 2010 2:54 amDefinitely join for the next month…
- 88
February 6th, 2010 6:35 pmgreat idea and good job , please on update on next month
- 00
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Excellent idea! I’ll definetely join.