The year has come to an end, and it has been a pretty eventful one. In particular, we’ve received so many more wallpapers than ever before: in total around 2000 submissions. Only a few of them made it past our final selection to be published on Smashing Magazine. We express our sincere gratitude to all of the designers who took the time to design and submit their work for the contest. We truly appreciate and respect the hard work you guys have put into your art!

To encourage you, our dear readers, to submit your artwork next year as well (here are the details), we have decided to present you with some of the best desktop wallpapers from 2010. You can vote for your favorites, and we will award the top five with some useful, interesting design books. The winners will be determined by the number of “likes” they receive (you will find a button under each entry). Be warned, though: we will track any tampering and remove entries whose counters are in any case manipulated.

Voting ends on Friday, the 17th of December, at 23:59 CET.

We encourage everyone to participate. You can vote for as many entries as you like. And please feel free to visit the websites of the designers featured in this post!

New Year Inspiration

"Essential tools for the new year! Have a great year!" Designed by Phidev Inc. from USA.

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Paper flower

"Colorful design made in illustrator and retouched in photoshop." Designed by Guillermo Mantilla from Mexico.

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Pizza and Wings

"Football season is coming to an end and March Madness is about to begin, carb up." Designed by Ashleigh Liggett from the United States.

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Sairá

"This is a bird (Tangara desmaresti) from my contry, with the colour from ours symbols and flames." Designed by Romy Campos from Brazil.

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Valentine

"Happy Valentine’s Day." Designed by Dragos M from Romania.

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Super Mario bros 1985

"My 25th anniversary tribute to Super Mario bros." Designed by Davide Vicariotto from Italy.

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Haiku on Hanami

"And the wind says swish, swish…" Designed by April Joy E. Jasmin from the Philippines.

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Splatter

"Inspired by an area of my painting studio." Designed by Stephanie Crisalli from USA.

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Unknown Beauty

"I’m a 21 year old student from the Netherlands. My school project was to make a wallpaper for this contest ^^So i did..Why the girl? this was my first vector and i wanted to show you all.Greetz,Jeroen van den Brand." Designed by Jeroen van den Brand from the Netherlands.

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Design Sleep Design

Designed by Krystian Kubicki from Poland.

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Spring Flower

"Shot with a 50mm lens. I love bokehs. And this flower was so springy I had to shoot it. Enjoy and Happy Easter!" Designed by Anca Varsandan from Romania.

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Little April

"In the spring I have a lot on my mind and no rest day." Designed by Anna Skibinska from Poland.

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The End of Explorer Calendar

"For friends of MSIE, here is “The End Of Explorer” may 2010 desktop wallaper calendar, in a Variety of resolutions from 320×480 (iPhone) to 2560×1600! Hope you’ll find some size here to fit with your desktop ;-)" Designed by Benoit Chartron from France.

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May Happen, May Be

"”May Happen, May Be” is all about possibilities… we can all get out of our cages, maybe in may!" Designed by Thais Trizoli from Brazil.

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Focus on Work

"This wallpaper design is supposed not to distract your attention, but to make you focus on work. This might work if you keep your desktop clean enough ;)" Designed by Andrei Verner from Russia.

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Rapunzel

"A grunge take on Rapunzel!" Designed by Cindy Zhang from USA.

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Hockey

"With the Stanley Cup Finals this month, I thought it fitting to roll out a Hanson bros. wallpaper. If you haven’t seen Slapshot, see it. One of the greatest sports movies of all time." Designed by Dan Sweet from USA.

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It wasn’t me

"Actually there no special meaning behind that wallpaper. :) I just had this idea of a cute monkey character and this is what came out of it. ;)" Designed by Nicole Bauer from Germany.

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SummerTime

“Summertime and the livin’ is easy…” Designed by Osiris Magro from Spain.

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Ribbons

“Just folding ribbons and watching their paths…” Designed by Thais Trizoli from Brazil.

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Ducks Muffin Summer

“Inspired on a story of two people who met on-line. A duck and a muffin.” Designed by Irene from Spain.

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Aves Lacuna

Designed by Kyle Wheaton from Buffalo, NY, USA.

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Superstar

“Has “the man” got you down? Feel like nobody sees what a superstar you are? Well keep on shining all day long with this retro-tastic wallpaper!” Designed by Brennan Gilbert from USA.

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Viktoria

“A little wallpaper for all the Germany supporters during the World Cup.” Designed by Ricky Linn from USA.

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Tension9

"I made a 9 on the fence with nails and woolen to express the tension. It has come to the ninth month of 2010. Still working hardly and stressfully? Take it easy!" Designed by Ssu-Hua Chen from Australia.

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Autumn Skyview

"Laying on field watching the sky above, leaves are falling, autumn is coming." Designed by Jaro Mlkvy from Slovakia.

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Autumn Paper

"Autumn is the season that’s most calming to me. Perfect weather, an array of colors, and a great source of inspiration to designers." Designed by Bogdan Lazar from Romania.

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Love Birds

"Celebrate love and be free. Happy September to everyone!" Designed by Martina Skender from Croatia/Israel.

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Liquifly

Designed by Nicolle Marie from USA.

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Any Browser

"I just wanna spread the message, “Use any browser, it doesn’t matter. But use the latest version!”." Designed by Minhaj Mohamed from Sri Lanka.

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October 2010 Wallpaper

"For October 2010, still with the summer in the head, I wanted to imagine a magic place where I can go sometimes far from work, far from the Earth." Designed by Benoit Chartron from France.

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Symbian World

"Scene from Symbian World." Designed by Anna Alfut from the UK.

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The Words I’ve Never Said To You

Designed by Matteo Palazzani – Palastar Photography from Italy.

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The Colours of October

"Colourful autumn leaves." Designed by Anna-Lena Lewerenz from Germany.

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Rose Petal

"Don’t underestimate the true beauty of a single dried rose petal…." Designed by Thuy Truong.

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Flying

"I’d like to fly away to warm countries for winter." Designed by Marta Miazek from Poland.

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Pink Morning

"Some watercolor, inspiration and good mood!" Designed by Oxana Kostromina from Poland/Russia.

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UX cake

Designed by WitFlow from Poland.

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December 2010 Wallpaper

“For December 2010, illustration of myself Wishing” Designed by Benoit Chartron from France.

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Christmas Stuff

“Some of the things that come to my mind when thinking of christmas..” Designed by Jaro Mlkvy from Slovakia.

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Starleaves

Designed by Fabio Toscani from Italy.

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Spider Web

Designed by Mohd. Aaqib from India.

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Fun in the Snow

“A girl and her friend, The Snowman, being silly in the first snow :)I love December. Happy Holidays, everyone!” Designed by Anca Varsandan from Romania.

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Thank you for your efforts and time everyone! We’re definitely looking forward to your artistic wallpaper submissions in 2011!

(vf) (ik)

© Vitaly Friedman for Smashing Magazine, 2010. | Permalink | Post a comment | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this | Stumble on StumbleUpon! | Tweet it! | Submit to Reddit | Forum Smashing Magazine
Post tags: 2010, highlights, Wallpapers