According to a Swedish legend, there was a cobbler who each year put up a sign that said "Closed Between Bird Cherry and Lilac".

And this is indeed an enchanting time of year! Beautiful and intoxicating early summer. When veils of green leaves open on the bare branches. The heady scents of blossoms. Fresh shades of greens and bird song.

Every year I keep thinking that I really ought to do what the cobbler did! Hang up a sign on the door and take a few weeks off to indulge in this time of sheer beauty. And every year it turns out to be a busy time of year!

I had to do something about it so last week I spent the day walking all over Djurgården in Stockholm. I was dizzy with summer! Lunch in the fruit orchard at Rosendals Trädgård under clouds of cherry blossom was almost too much to take in. Breathtaking.

Back in the studio I worked on this desktop picture with an orchard with cherry trees in bloom which originally was inspired by a letter from Japan. But that is a different story! Trying to give the image this almost ethereal feeling I had in the orchard... And perhaps a bit of a story book quality!

Cherry Orchard wallpaper is available in the Freebies section and comes in several sizes and variations for different types of monitors and set ups. There are fullscreen, widescreen, iPhone and iPod Touch versions so pick a good one!

Tags: design, seasonal, floral, summer, spring, nature, Japanese, iPhone, iPod Touch, widescreen, fullscreen, dual monitor

If home is where you lay your hat, and your desktop is where you spend a big chunk of your time, why not take your desktop for an adventure starting off by hanging this gorgeous fedora on your desktop? Adventure is where you find it!

The Month of Adventure presents desktop art on an Indiana Jones theme!

Turn your desktop into Dr. Jones' desktop with Indy's Desk, a stunning and detailed vintage-style desktop picture by Dave Brasgalla. This wallpaper brings dreams of travel and exploration to your desktop!

Make your adventurous desktop complete with icons from Indy's quest for the fabled Lost Ark. Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark by Anthony Piraino which brings you the Indiana Jones' trademark fedora and bullwhip. His notebook, treasure map and of course the treasures! 


In anticipation of Lucasfilm & Paramount’s blockbuster series starring Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull we have launched a month-long tribute to Indiana Jones over at the Iconfactory! The Month of Adventure will see the debut of a set of icons for each movie so we can look forward to The Temple of Doom, Last Crusade, and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull icon sets released later on this month. The adventure continues all month long!

Related Links:
Dave Brasgalla's personal site and portfolio Pixelhuset
Anthony Pirano's personal site and gallery One-Button Mouse

Tags: desktop, film, movie, adventure, travel, vintage, historical, realism

I have been fascinated with yellow ever since the daffodils burst out in bloom! This new dual monitor desktop background with forsythia was inspired by Japanese designs and patterns - and yellow.

This month Club Members receive the Marmalade Monthly and a May desktop calendar. So head on over to the freebies section to get your Forsythia wallpaper and don't forget to join Club Marmalade Moon for even more exclusive desktop goodies!

Tags: design, seasonal, floral, spring, nature, Japanese, iPhone, iPod Touch, widescreen, fullscreen, dual monitor, desktop calendar

Spending hours on your computer? How about a spring desktop makeover?

Marmalade Moon has created a new club to belong to. As May approaches, there is one more week to get the April Club Benefits!

I have designed three limited edition floral icons exclusively for members of Club Marmalade Moon. A Siberian Scilla. An exquisite tulip with striking, rosy apricot petals suffused with pink! A Pheasant's Eye Daffodil, or Poet's Daffodil.

April's Club Monthly comes as icons for Windows, icons for Mac and as images for personal use on your blog, website, as an avatar for your computer user account, forums, instant messenger and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or MySpace. The images are all in png format and available in seven sizes.

Join now to get your free, limited edition spring desktop art!

Let your desktop bloom! 

Tags: design, seasonal, bold, spring, floral

When MacPeople Lite in Japan featured my Soon Spring icons in their Spring 2008 issue I revisited the collection and decided to update the set to include fresh new versions for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista for this weeks release of icons at the Iconfactory.

But it was so much fun to work with these icons that I expanded the collection with five bold, new spring flowers! Inspiration was literally on the doorstep, with a few late Snowdrops and a sea of Scilla on the grassy slope outside the studio. Iris, Daffodils and Pheasant's Eye saluting the sun from the flowerbeds.

When I was designing these flowers I studied them and was fascinated by things I found out. That Iris, in Greek mythology, was the goddess of the rainbow and messenger of the gods. The optical phenomenon iridescence is derived from Iris' name and the fleur-de-lis is a stylized Iris...

Then I read that Pheasant's Eye daffodil, is also called Poet's Daffodil or Narcissus poeticus in latin... Isn't that just irresistable!?

And if you want to get it on paper, that spring is here, you might be interested in the Tulip card over in the shop where there are several cards inspired by spring.

Soon Spring icons come with a companion wallpaper: A Sea of Scilla. This desktop picture is available in several sizes for different types of monitors. There are fullscreen, widescreen, iPhone and iPod Touch versions so take your pick!

Last but not least, members of Club Marmalade Moon receive a bonus collection of Soon Spring icons and images for personal use on your blog or website or as avatars for your computer user account, forums, instant messenger and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or MySpace! Join the club to get your free April release of limited edition desktop art!

Tags: design, seasonal, floral, nature, spring, bold, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen, Mac, Windows

It never fails, every year I buy budding bunches of daffodils, when I shop for food at the market. A couple of days later I buy another bunch, soon the dinner table is overflowing with daffodils. And when the daffodils bloom I am startled at how anything can be so - well so very yellow...

As you might have guessed, I am designing some icons and desktop pictures on a spring theme. Bold and colourful like the brave spring blossoms. This spring desktop art will be ready to open its petals on your desktop next week!

Members of Club Marmalade Moon will receive bonus spring desktop art, so join the club to get your April release of limited edition desktop art, if you haven't done so already!

Tags: design, seasonal, spring, nature, floral, bold, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen, dual monitor, Windows, Mac

I am delighted to announce that my article about creating 512x512 icons for Mac OS X Leopard has been published at Smashing Magazine!

Smashing Magazine delivers useful, inspirational and innovative information for designers and web-developers and it's a great pleasure for me to contribute to such a creative designer environment!

“In 2000 Apple released the visual theme Aqua, a stunning leap forward in graphical user interface design. At the same time Apple published the Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), a tool for developers and designers that gives a detailed breakdown of the design philosophy behind Aqua. Apple recently updated their Human Interface Guidelines (HIG), to include the way the visual theme Aqua has evolved in Apple's latest operating system, OS X 10.5 Leopard. This is the first update since 2006.”

Aqua: "Gorgeous, artistic icons are an important part of the Mac OS X user experience. Users expect beautiful icons that tell an application’s story in a clear and memorable way". Well, how do icon designers go about creating beautiful icons in 512x512 glory? Leopard and the Updated HIG: A Designer's Guide to Icons examines Aqua's interface. Realism, symbols, silhouettes, transparency, light source and perspective. We take a look at the Dock, Leopard's file browser Cover Flow and the icon sizes. Finally you will find some practical tips on how to scale your art work so that the smaller versions become crisp and clear.

Tags: Apple, Mac OS X, Leopard, interface, design, usability, gui, guide, tutorial, realism

Sick of that boring, impersonal, generic computer desktop but not quite sure how to change it and make it yours? The Help Desk is open! Here you you can find out how to use icons to make your desktop personal and productive.

Step-by-step tutorials guide you through how to save desktop art to your computer with ease and change the desktop icons on Mac OSX or customize the icons on Windows, how to use system replacement icons as well as how to customise your desktop picture / wallpaper with just a few clicks. Tutorials both for Windows and Mac.

There is no need to worry about which operating system you are using! These simple steps work in both Windows Vista, Windows XP as well as the classic, older Windows operating systems. Mac users can use these tutorials both to customise Mac OSX Leopard, the previous verisons of Mac OSX and the classic older versions of Mac operating systems.

There is also a printable PDF version that provides a way for you to keep an offline copy or print a copy for later use. Sometimes it can be handy to have a printed version on one's desk, whilst going through the different steps.

It's fun and easy to beautify your desktop! To make your digital working and leisure environment personal, functional, practical, gorgeous, to give it the look and visual cues you want it to have!

Tags: tutorial, gui, guide, how-to, faq, customise, customisation, productivity, desktop, Mac, Mac OS X, Leopard, Windows, Vista

Well, while I was off to have Easter dinner with my family, the Easter Hare showed up for his last visit for the year! There were paw prints all over the house and he had left a note by my laptop with little odd drawings, scribbles and arrows explaining where all the eggs were...

Here are all the eggs and their locations! If you missed the egg hunt you can download them here.

And there is more! This was just the beginning of fun desktop events here at Marmalade Moon! I am launching a new project for people who like to customize their desktops: Club Marmalade Moon!

Members will receive exclusive, limited edition, designer desktop art that will be free for use in personal projects. You can use the desktop art to decorate your computer desktop. Or your blog or website. You can use it for your computer user account, your forum profile, or instant messenger. You can customise your social network such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter. Making your digital space personal and beautiful. And it's fun to collect the desktop art too!

Sign up today and be part of the grand opening in April!

Happy Easter!

Tags: design, desktop, interface, customise, customisation, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, holiday, Easter icon egg hunt

He's been here! The Easter Hare was all excited and said he had hidden six eight Easter Egg Icons on the Marmalade Moon!

I asked him what you were supposed to do when you found an egg, he gave me a look like I am hopeless, and said that “you just click on it and you will be magically transported to a secret page where you can save them to your computer”.

Then his paintbrush dropped out of his satchel and he snatched it back up and suddenly looked a bit worried. He said something about finding the right shades for chocolate, and said he'd be back with more eggs “when they were ready”. Then he jumped vertically for no apparent reason. Blinked and darted off.

Just like that! There was no time for me to remind him that the last day for the egg hunt is on Easter Monday, 24 March and ask him what he had planned for the grand finale! If anything... One wonders... I will keep you updated when I see any more evidence of his work...

Until then, good luck on your icon egg hunt! Six eight eggs to find to start with!

CLUE: If you have recently been browsing Marmalade Moon you might have to reload a page to see the egg, or clear the cashe in your browser.

Tags: design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, holiday, Easter icon egg hunt

So, I ran into the Easter Bunny and, he said there is going to be a desktop icon egg hunt here at Marmalade Moon!

Yes, he really did seem mad as a March hare, this bunny, or rabbit... Very excited, but also a bit scatterbrained... I was asking him about dates and how many of these eggs he was planning to bring but all I could get out of him was that it will be going on “during Easter” and that he will be hiding “some beautiful eggs” all over Marmalade Moon... When I pressed he said the last day for the hunt would be on Easter Monday, 24 March.

I think that was a bit too much for him, having to be so specific, because after that he started mumbling about whether these eggs would be wrapped in foil or not, or if they would be made of chocolate or if they were going to be all in shades of pastels or in stronger colours, with patterns or dyed, hollow or solid... And then he hopped off with a jerk, I assume to make preparations, and I refrained from passing any comments about tin foil...

Tags: design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, holiday, Easter icon egg hunt

I am glad to announce that I have opened a shop here at Marmalade Moon!

I have designed a collection of brand new cards with seasonal motifs! You will find tulips, forget-me-nots and lilacs bursting out in time for spring as well as roses for when summer grows ripe. Colourful maple leaves for the autumn. Crisp snowflakes and orientally inspired pine tree patterns for chilly winter's days. Handy for birthday greetings, thank you notes, holiday greetings or just to let a friend know that you are thinking of them.

This is all part of my celebration of Marmalade Moon's 10th anniversary!

Tags: design, stationery, celebration, seasonal, floral

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein

I have been experimenting with Twitter. Poetic micro-blogging. Brief moments. A cup of coffee or bird song. Fleeting thoughts. Glimpses of my day. Often something that inspires me. Something that brightens my day. Small miracles.

If you are curious you can follow my twits, um, my tweets I mean. I hope they can inspire you!

This creative tutorial video “Twitter in Plain English” by Lee LeFever from Common Craft explains how Twitter works.



Of course you can be creative with Twitter. You don't have to report to the whole world your every move. It doesn't have to be a source of stress, yet one more thing to update, like a timesheet.

It is interesting to see how a great fear or awareness of George Orwell's Big Brother watching has been replaced by the current trend to voluntarily report one's activities! Without being too paranoid, I think it is a good idea to be aware that burglars and stalkers may take advantage of the information that people publish. Also, it might be a good idea to take into account that people like your business associates or your future employer could be following your tweets.

However, you can protect your updates so that only those you approve can follow your tweets. Maybe you only want your family and close friends to read your tweets. Maybe you are using Twitter to increase your productivity in work situations and only want your co-workers to follow your updates. You can even use Twitter as a tool just for yourself and not allow anyone to follow you. Then again maybe you want the whole world to read them! It's all up to you.

Some people use Twitter to be more productive and use it to network, promote their businesses and collaborate with co-workers. Or as a to-do-list. To ask a question. A shopping list. Or for themselves, for example to track exercises and calorie intake. Others use Twitter to report a stream of daily activities and thoughts or to vent publicly.

Some feel that answering the question “what are you doing?” is the ultimate way to use Twitter, whilst others feel that is the least interesting way.

I am experimenting with micro poetry. See what you can create with it... Maybe a small miracle!

Tags: poetry, inspiration, social networking

Announcing the release of a set of Full Moon icons based on the colourful moons from my recent Total Lunar Eclipse Collection of desktop pictures.

Customize your desktop with this set of icons includes nine variations reaching from a pale, milky white moon, through shades of yellow, glowing oranges and reds as well as some blue moons.

Full Moon icons are Leopard and Vista ready!

Tags: design, iPhone, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, nature, celestial, astronomy, Moon

Today I was happy and excited to get my copy of Swedish Illustration, a book that I am being featured in!

"The guide to the most exciting and innovative illustrators in Sweden today. The book illustrates the current trends – offering uniquely Swedish insights about innovation and creative interpretations."

Swedish Illustration will be presented at The London Book Fair in April and at The Frankfurt Book Fair (Frankfurter Buch Messe) in October.

The book will be distributed in several European countries as well as in the USA, Asia and Australia.

Tags: design, art

I am busy creating more desktop art on the theme of the full moon. There will be a new set of icons with the full moon based on the colourful moons from the Total Lunar Eclipse Collection of wallpapers. I am planning a set that spans from silvery white, a harvest moon and blood red moons in explosive shades of red, orange, pink and palest lilac. Oh, and a blue moon too of course!

Also, on popular demand, I am remastering 'The Painted Desert', a desert landscape with moon. Adding new sizes for large monitors and for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as dual monitor versions.

These are some of the ideas I am working on just now, so check back for this new set of icons with the Full Moon and for 'The Painted Desert' desktop picture.

Tags: design, nature, celestial, astronomy, Moon, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen, dual monitor, Windows, Mac, Mac OS X

I designed three new desktop pictures with the total eclipse of the Moon available for download in the freebies section so that you can enjoy this dramatic celestial feast on your desktop.

'Under a Blood Red Moon', 'Glowing Coal Moon' and 'Burning Orange Moon'.

Tags: design, nature, celestial, astronomy, Moon, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen

I am making a new wallpaper for the celestial feast on Thursday, February 21, when stargazers will see the full Moon blush red as it passes through Earth's shadow in a total lunar eclipse! The colour of the Moon will change from silvery white to copper red or glowing orange when light is deflected by the Earth’s atmosphere and bounces back off the “blood moon”.

Shades of palest lilac, pinks, oranges and deep red all come together forming a Moon that resembles a glowing coal. So check back for a collection of new desktop pictures with the total eclipse of the Moon!

Further reading (external links):
NASA - Lunar Eclipse Page
Wikipedia - Lunar Eclipse

Tags: design, nature, celestial, astronomy, Moon, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen

Update: Marmalade Moon has moved to a new server and is now running much faster. 14th February 2008.

Tomorrow, on the 14th of February, Marmalade Moon will be moving to a fresh new server. This means that after the move, the site will load faster! The web address or url will be the same as ever but we can expect that the site will not be accessible for an hour, while it is being moved.

I just updated two sets of icons, Valentine's Day and Wedding with new juicy big sizes for Mac for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows Vista in time for for the Iconfactory's Valentine's Day Celebration. Naturally these icons still also contain versions for the classic systems. These icons will look simply gorgeous in Leopard’s Cover Flow or as searchable CandyBar iContainers.

Valentine's Day includes hearts, a Valentine's Day card, a forget-me-not, a rose and a box of chocolates.

Originally I created Wedding as an iconic wedding gift for a friend and co-worker. The collection has a Chinese theme and includes a wedding invitation, a bridal bouquet of red roses, gold wedding rings, a wedding cake, a present, a glass of champagne and the Chinese symbol for Double Happiness.

So head on over to the Iconfactory's Valentine's Day Celebration, where you will find that the desktop cupid has presented romantic wallpapers and icons!

Tags: design, desktop, interface, Mac OS X, Windows, Leopard, Vista, seasonal, holiday, Valentine's Day, romance, bold

Just a quick update to let you know that I did some early spring cleaning here on the blog section, adding an archive for older posts. This makes the front page shorter and helps it load faster.

If you are looking for previous posts you can find them in the sidebar where they are archived by the year they were originally published, 2006, 2007 and 2008.

These posts are from the time I have been using blog software. Marmalade Moon has a longer history than that, in fact last year I celebrated Marmalade Moon's 10th Anniversary!

I am so excited that xScope 2.0 is being released!

This handy tool really is a “Swiss Army knife” for designers and developers. xScope is a powerful set of tools to measure, compare, and contrast literally anything on the screen. xScope will increase your productivity and free you from mundane tasks like measuring on screen elements.

Version 2.0 introduces Dimensions. This tool is like laser tape measure for the screen that projects a beam out from your cursor instantly finding the edges of images, margins and blocks of text. The days of taking screen shots, opening them and measuring them by hand are finally over!

xScope will change the way you work and take all the effort out of measuring onscreen elements.

An Iconfactory and ARTIS Software production.

Tags: design, gui, interface, productivity, software

In time for Valentine's Day, this desktop picture with rose petals has been remastered for large monitors and for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

For a digital romance, or for a longing for deep summer, the heady scent of roses, the velvet petals.

Dress up your desktop in pretty petals over in the freebies section. Because desktop geeks have feelings too!

Tags: Valentine's Day, summer, seasonal, nature, design, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen

There has hardly been any snow in Sweden this winter so I had to make up for it in some way. I designed a winter wonderland desktop background with bold, crisp, stylised snowflakes to capture a winter atmosphere.

'Snowflake' Wallpaper is available for download in the freebies section. Enjoy!

Tags: snow, winter, seasonal, nature, holiday, design, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen, dual monitor

Marmalade Moon wishes you a happy New Year and continues to celebrate its 10th anniversary with new desktop art; 'Celebration' desktop picture with Fireworks.

This wallpaper is available both for widescreen and fullscreen monitors as well as the iPhone and iPod Touch. I am excited to also introduce some new resolutions as well as dual monitor wallpapers!

Here is a toast to absent friends, a toast to present friends, a toast to everyone who has visited Marmalade Moon!

Update: I made some changes to this wallpaper adding a little more detail. 15th January 2008.

Tags: seasonal, holiday, celebration, design, iPhone, iPod Touch, fullscreen, widescreen, dual monitor