Great Free Desktop Wallpapers

Ok, ladies and gentlemen, this week we have a treat for you! It's all about spreading the love.
Ever been trawling the Internet for hours to find a decent desktop wallpaper? Fed up of finding advertisement-heavy websites with nothing but cheesey celeb wallpapers and poorly-designed cartoons? Want to make your computer look beautiful? Well here at Imprenta Pronto we have done the hard graft for you! We have carefully and painstakingly searched and searched for free desktop wallpapers that you all can enjoy.
There's something for everyone - we have put them all on one site!
To download click on your screen size of choice, then drag the loaded image to your selected desktop file.

Mac Wallpapers

screen size (in pixels)
1024x640


screen size (in pixels)
1024x640


screen size (in pixels)
1920x1499


screen size (in pixels)
1280x1024

Cartoon Wallpapers

screen size (in pixels)

1280x800 1280x1024 1680x1050

screen size (in pixels)
1024x786 1600x1200 1680x1050


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768 1600x1200 1920x1200


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768 1600x1200 1680x1050

Nature/Foliage Wallpapers

screen size (in pixels)
1024x768 1280x1024 1600x1200


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768 1280x960 1600x1200


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768 1280x960 1600x1200


screen size (in pixels)
1280x1024 1600x1200 1680x1050

Misc Wallpapers

screen size (in pixels)
1920x1200


screen size (in pixels)
1600x1200


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768


screen size (in pixels)
1024x768

Please enjoy the wallpapers as much as we have!
Credits to:

desktopography.net
endeffect.com
555design.org
deviantart.com
iunewind.com
customize.org
flickr.com/photos/benadamson
hicksdesign.co.uk

Don't forget to go to imprentapronto.com for some great design ideas
(hopefully wallpaper designs coming soon!)

Keep Creative,

James

A round of applause for the Beijing logo!

Well, as the Olympics are upon us and the excitement is buzzing around the studio, it is only natural that the Olympics would be entering our blog too.
So, the Beijing logo; what do we all think? Politics aside, it's a refreshing logo, well designed and thought out. The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games emblem's official statement on the logo:

"Chinese Seal, Dancing Beijing" is filled with Beijing's hospitality and hopes, and carries the city's commitment to the world."

If we break down the logo, one of the most striking parts is the bright red, which obviously has strong links with China and it symbolism for prosperity, good luck and happiness.
The actual logo (which at first glance I thought was a running man!) is the Chinese symbol for "jing" beautifully created in calligraphy/style strokes, which are followed through to the "Beijing 2008" writing below. The simplicity of the red background with the connotations of stone brings notions of history, which obviously is inherent to the Olympics.
Overall the logo unifies the Olympics with Chinese culture beautifully, it says a lot, without saying too much. It's simple, but has a certain depth. Very well constructed, and a thumbs up from the Imprenta Pronto team!

I can't leave the blog without mentioning one of the most long/lasting logos of all time...

The Olympic Rings
The results of a survey carried out in six countries (Australia, Germany, India, Japan, Great Britain and the USA) in 1995 showed that 92% of those questioned correctly identified the Olympic rings, which made them the most-recognised symbol. They were followed by the McDonald's and Shell emblems (88%), Mercedes (74%) and the United Nations (36%). (SRI Sponsorship Research International).

The logo was designed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin (founder of the modern Olympic Movement) in 1913 after he saw a similar design on an artifact from ancient Greece. These five rings -- blue, yellow, black, green and red -- represent the five parts of the world now encompassed by Olympism and ready to compete against each other. Moreover, the six colours (including the white background) thus combined represent those of all nations, without exception. The blue and yellow of Sweden, the blue and white of Greece, the French, English, American, German, Belgian, Italian and Hungarian tricolors, the yellow and red of Spain are side by side with the new Brazilian and Australian flags, the old Japan and the new China. It is a true international emblem."

As an image of Olympism, Coubertin thought the rings had deep significance: that of the union between men. He multiplied the image to create a total of five rings and designed and commissioned the Olympic flag to mark the 20th anniversary of the IOC's founding, on 23rd June 1914 in Paris. Coubertin never said nor wrote that he saw a link between the colours of the rings and the continents. For him, the five rings represented the union of the five continents but the colours were merely those that appeared in all the different national flags at the time.

Thanks to IOC for the info!

Good luck to your countries
and Keep Creative!

James

Creative Car Park!

How many times have you finished your shopping excited about what you've bought, enjoyed your day with that warm fuzzy feeling inside and then, just as quickly as you’ve spent your last pay cheque, WHAM! you're hit with the realisation of having to navigate the car park. Your heart sinks and your blood pressure rises! No-one likes facing the poorly-lit concrete eyesore that, to add insult to injury, will drive you crazy trying to navigate through looking for the exit sign that takes you right back to where you came from!

Well, whilst I was having a similar experience last week I was talking with my friend about why no-one has really done anything about this. Surely shopping centres don't want your last experience to be this! Then my friend told me about Axel Peemoeller, who is the award-winning designer of a way-finding-system for the Eureka Tower Car Park in Melbourne, Australia (which at the time only added to my frustration!). So when I got home I had to look into this car park. And sure enough, it is fantastically creative! Well lit, bright, clear, and puts a smile on your face! I just had to add it to the blog, so take a look, sit back and enjoy!

The distorted letters on the wall can be read perfectly when standing in the right position and when you're not they look like colourful blocks of colour brightening up your day!

To view some creative solutions, don't forget to go to ImprentaPronto.com

Keep Creative,

James

We love design! - Design Classics

This week we’ve decided to go Retro, because we were discussing what it is, exactly, that makes something a Design Classic. There are certain items which have become trend-setters, bench-marks, that have made a before-and-after in design, at least of their particular article. Of course everyone has their list of personal favourites but we have tried to select a few (the magic Imprenta Pronto 5!) that almost no-one would argue with.
So what is it about these particular articles that makes them classics? What produces the ‘gut reaction’ when we see them? Well, one thing they all seem to have in common is clean-ness of line. No frills (without the low-cost airline overtones!) No decoration. They are what they are. They’re functional, they do their job. But of course it’s not just that. There’s something immensely satisfying about them, something that speaks to you. You feel an irresistible urge to touch them, handle them, try them. They stay in your mind. They’re instantly recognisable. You don’t have to be an expert to know that “here is a great piece of design.”

So here’s Number One,
Philippe Starck lemon squeezer.

Does it look like a lemon squeezer? Or like a three-legged spider? A rocket? And yet it is the perfect lemon squeezer. It’s simple. The glass fits underneath, you squeeze the lemon and the juice runs down and into the glass. No mess. No fiddling. Solid. Easy to clean. It works. And it looks wonderful. There’s something special about it. You want to pick it up. Actually, you want to put it in your pocket and take it home. You want to own it.

The VW Beetle, designer Ferdinand Porsche

Everybody knows the Beetle, though not everyone remembers that it was actually designed by Ferdinand Porsche. Yes, Ferdinand Porsche, your actual Porsche. Ah well, no wonder there’s something about it. It follows the basic rules we mentioned: clean lines, functional yet immensely satisfying. (So is a Porsche, of course.) At a time when enormous and extravagant American cars were supposed to be setting the standard for what a car should look like, the Beetle arrived and took over.

The Wassily Chair, designer Marcel Breuer.
What an odd shape for a chair. That’s not the shape anybody would draw if you asked them to draw a chair. And yet there it is, the perfect chair. I’ve seen an active two-year-old sit down in one and fall comfortably asleep in five minutes. How many of you have seen one somewhere, maybe in some swish office, and been unable to resist the temptation to sit down in it, even if no-one else is sitting down, even if it looks as if it’s only there for decoration. It begs to be sat in, and once you’re there, you’re in no hurry to get up again. And the design? Clean, smooth lines, functional, memorable … (are we boring you?)

The iMac, designer Jonathan Ive.

Well, yes. There was a trend-setter for you. After the iMac came a whole range of copy-cats, see-through calculators, telephones, etc. BUT THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE LINES!! They didn’t have what it takes. They came and went but the iMac has its place in history.

London Underground Map, designer Harry Beck
And finally (we could go on, but we won’t. Not today, anyway) the London Underground Map. The Underground Map?? Well, yes. Look at it. Revolutionary in its time, so much so that at first it was rejected outright. But the trend-setter. The Design Standard. Think of other underground maps you’ve seen, from other cities, other countries. What do they look like? Well, they look pretty similar to the London underground map (designed in 1931 by Harry Beck, who was actually an employee of the Underground system.) We won’t point out the clean smooth functional lines, the fact that it works … We might mention that although it purported to be a map, it took no account of real distances or locations, since Beck quite rightly felt that people using the Tube, underground and in the dark, neither knew nor cared exactly where they were, they just wanted to know how to get from A to B. And that is exactly what the map tells you.

Oh and don't forget to check out imprentapronto.com for more design classics!

Keep creative,

Ros