Meaningful Screensavers

I’ve been working with one of my favorite designers, Andy Greer, to create a series of screensavers for the Blanton Museum. My initial goals for these screensavers are:

  • expose more of the blanton’s valuable collection
  • make art a part of your every day life
  • open your eyes to news ideas and images
  • inspire you to come hang out in the new museum

We are using Screentime to create Flash based screensavers for both Mac and PC. The most recent version of Screentime has a feature that allows us to create dynamic content using XML and files stored on a central server. Sweeeeeeeeeeet. So….my plan? Your screensaver changes as the exhibits in the museum change! How cool is that?

Now, a few lessons learned to share:

  1. Deleting screensavers in Windows XP is a manual process! Imagine I want to delete a screensaver named foo:
    • Make sure your current screensaver is NOT set to foo.
    • Head to your C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 directory and look for the file named foo.scr and delete it.
    • Also scam around in this directory for a folder named foo dir and delete it as well.
  2. By default, the latest version of Screentime creates screensavers that ping a server. This will trigger an alert by most firewalls that says something like: “foo.scr is attempting to connect to a DNS server.” At the moment, the only way to turn off this ping it to create a txt file named ping.txt with a “1” in it and add it to your saver’s “External” files. when building your screentime screensaver.

Now, for all you designers out there…I’m sure this is information you’ve had carved into your brains…but I’m just learning about the importance of aspect ratio when designing screensavers and desktops. At the moment, I’m wondering if the following ratios are enough for me to consider 4:3, 5:4 and 8:5?

Resolutions with a 4:3 aspect ratio:

  • 800 x 600
  • 1024 x 768
  • 1152 x 864
  • 1600 x 1200

Resolutions with a 5:4 aspect ratio:

  • 1280 x 1024
  • 1600 x 1280

Resolutions with a 8:5 aspect ration:

  • 1280 x 800
  • 1152 x 720
  • 1680 x 1050

So…what words of wisdom do you have for me when it comes to aspect ratios or screensaver design?

7 comments

  1. I love your idea– dynamic content would be kick ass.

    We put out screen savers with our admissions cds at HSU, and we do one 3:4 and one 16:9 (widescreen) for each operating system. Unfortunatley, these go out on cd, so I don’t know about relative usage. I do know that prospective students love them, and the idea of adding dynamic content is making me drool.

  2. What about making a little “manager” app that can check with the server for a list and (un)install screensavers for people? It’s probably not very practical to make, but it would be extremely useful.

  3. @Andrea…16:9…mmmmmmmMmmmmmmGood…..that is a good idea. Usually it isn’t a big deal if you stretch a photo a little for your desktop…or in a screensaver…but with art….well, it is a huge deal. So we are using .jpg and not stretching so aspect ratios become very important design considerations.

    I’m having a vision of a giant flatscreen monitor in my living room with works of art from my favorite museum on the screen….I swear, it gives me chills!

    @Jordan, good idea on the manager app, and I don’t think it would even need to check the server. For some silly reason, Windows XP makes it a manual process for you to delete any screensaver from your system. And with all of the alpha versions I’ve been toying with…let’s just say, I had a few things that needed to be tossed in the recycling bin.

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