My Desktop Wallpaper

January 12, 2025

The Wallpaper: Summer Leaves

I’ve always been into default aesthetics, never customizing laptops with stickers, my Animal Crossing island (a problem for a game that hinges on you playing God and subjecting NPCs to your terrestrial whims), using cute keychains, swapping out shoelaces, affecting any of the finishes in my home, etc.

One time when I was 8 or 9 years old I capitulated to peer pressure to apply a Spiderman sticker to the back of my Pokemon limited edition Gameboy Color and I’ve regretted it for nearly 20 years. I still have the Gameboy Color, and I wince every time I see Spiderman (I’ve tried removing the sticker, but the adhesive has hardened a lot over the years).

My thinking has been that the original designer thought deeper than I possibly ever could, and I should trust their instincts and honor the integrity of their design. Maybe this comes from being a designer myself, and not wanting my own creations to be undermined, but I don’t really think that’s it.

Anyway, this is a long preamble to say that I’ve always used the default macOS wallpapers that have been released over the years. They are beautiful, and I think the naturalistic imagery of them gets at this collective thinking that computers should be more hopeful and relaxing; this frame of mind fits into tech industry nostalgia about making the world a better place, when maybe the industry was a little more idealistic. I’ll be the first to admit I am also nostalgic for the optimism of the industry, and the default wallpapers from older versions of macOS feed into that.

The Summer Leaves wallpaper has been my most recent favorite default wallpaper. It came out with Mac OS X — Snow Leopard in 2009. Chartreuse, yellow-y green is my favorite color. The warmth of the yellow and peacefulness (and kind of quirkiness) of the green feels so crisp and refreshing to me. Although the wallpaper is called Summer Leaves, it feels like a bright fall morning, right before the leaves change color.

The wallpaper is taken from behind a set of leaves, obscuring the background. I like that I am rifling through my application windows, and closing them to reveal this tree canopy I’m behind. It’s like I am hiding in the tree, doing my thing on the computer, and then I can reveal the real world behind me.

Each computer has its own personality in my mind. I use Summer Leaves on my work laptop, maybe because I need some type of optimism in my day to day life.

I recently got a new MacBook Pro for my personal life, and I’m using Snow for now. I think because the computer feels totally pure and unblemished, and ripe for possibilities. I am hoping to use this computer in a new, deeper way, and love that it doesn’t have any baggage, like fresh powder.

Snow

In the last 10-ish years, the SaaS-ification and min-maxing for revenue has destroyed the wonder and craft of good software, and this reminds me of a time where software was just… good. It’s probably just rose-tinted glasses though.