No matter how much theming and customization you do, you've got a wallpaper on your home screen. And a wallpaper is the easiest way to express your style, your passions, your substance on your phone. Which is why I implore you to please, PLEASE, ditch your dingy old wallpaper and get something new, something fun!
Over the past year of my weekly wallpaper articles, we've amassed quite a collection, and today, I'd like to share with you some of my favorites...
This is one of the first wallpapers I ever shared on this site, and it remains one of my favorites. Macchiato Mermaid is a theme I'll find myself coming back to whenever I need to get another taste of Little Mermaid on my homescreen. It's an easy theme, but I love the way the Trident pops on my dock. It's sophistication that belies simplicity.
Every twinkle! Every sparkle! It's a sign of Christmas magic!
I've used this wallpaper two winters in a row, and I know I'll be circling back to it again in a few months when the Christmas carols start playing again. I have the ever-charming Chateau de la Belle au Bois Dormant from Disneyland Paris shining in the distance, snow falling across the beautiful wintery scene, and a Santa boot left Cinderella-style on the steps (bet he's missing that in this weather). This wallpaper is whimsical, yet refined, and the strong blue-white-red color scheme lends itself well to theming, with Glim red-variant icons for my dock and color-variable widgets when I get the whim.
While our phones may be bringing the promise of the future to our homes, our pockets, and the rest of our lives, if you need a little more vintage futuristic-ness on your device, this wallpaper is here for you. This simple pattern is classic, elegant, and adds a subtle Disney flair to your home screen. Equally at home on a work phone or on your daily driver, this wallpaper plays well with most widgets, and the only icon pack that doesn't go with it is Lines.
Neuschwanstein Castle is one of the most picturesque castles in the world, nestled in the mountains of Germany. A poster of it hung above my bed in college, and probably hangs on a lot of walls because it is a beautiful castle — it was even the inspiration behind Sleeping Beauty's castle at Disneyland. While most pictures show the castle draped in snow or summer splendor, this image of the castle surrounded by ruby red foliage is a certain kind of badass. Like a giant blood-red cape draped around the castles shoulders, that red hue also lends itself well to theming, with red search bars and red folder shortcuts.
Who hasn't dreamed of soaring over the clouds? Of leaving the world and all its cares behind and seeing what the sky had to offer? Well, most of us wouldn't fly off for too long (phone batteries are still only lasting a few days at most), but when we look at this wallpaper, we can daydream about it for a moment before going back to our Twitter feeds.
I'm also going to confess, this is a low-key Disney wallpaper for me because I turn it into a Soarin theme with red, yellow, and blue accents in addition to a Soarin logo app drawer icon.
Clouds Beyond Clouds II by FnKlinedinst
Looking up at the night sky for most of us treats us to a few brighter stars, maybe the moon, and a lot of darkness. But imagine if you looked at at night to a scene like this? Granted, some of the stars here are closer than any others will every be to Earth, but look at the color, the vibrancy, the activity. Look at all the stars, all the worlds there are out there! This wallpaper makes me wonder about the life, the wonder, the mysteries that are just waiting up in the sky, waiting to be found.
Some people say 3D animation isn't as good as cel animation, and I'm here to jump up and down and scream 'til I'm in the Land of the Remembered that IT'S NOT TRUE! 3D animation can be vibrant, it can be beautiful, and it can be magical! The Book of Life is a 3D animation that used its digital medium with brilliance, giving otherworldly deities vibrance and mystical grace amongst the toy-like humans in our tale.
The museum guide tells us that La Muerte is made of sweet sugar candy, but she's wrong: La Muerte is made out of goodness and sass. The dangerous gleam in her red-gold eyes when she discovers her husband's treachery is raw, it is vivid, and it is real. She also delivers an undeniably strong message at the end of the film, one that we all need to be reminded of:
"Anyone can die. These kids, they will have the courage to live."
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There's a warmth to this place, and look at all the memos literally flying around! Who wouldn't want to work there? Well, maybe not at the Department of Mysteries, but maybe we could find something with the Aurors, or maybe Mr. Scamander could use some aides after his shenanigans in New York... Oh, and this is a great wallpaper for theming, just add a golden search bar at the top and some green folder and app drawer accents. Sure, it's a little on the Slytherin side of the color scheme, but damn it, it's pretty!!
