I did not wake up planning to design a wallpaper. I definitely did not plan to spend days debating fabric grain, pixel offsets, or whether Fibonacci numbers belong on a screen background. But curiosity got the better of me. This is what happens when you know what you want, let AI do the heavy lifting, and end up with something no one else will notice. Read on if that sounds like something worth scrolling through.
A few days ago, I asked ChatGPT to help me come up with a minimalist wallpaper I could use on all my devices, something subtle enough to disappear when I am working but interesting enough to feel like mine. What started as a vague idea for a wallpaper turned into a quiet reminder that AI, or whatever we are calling this, can be a potent accelerator if you know exactly what to ask for. What I ended up with is part fabric, part quiet math, part system; all hidden in plain sight.
Why bother?
There are endless wallpapers out there. Random gradients, stock photos, images that look good for a day and then feel out of place. I have spent more time than I care to admit trying to find something that works everywhere, something that looks right whether it is on my phone, my tablet, or a big screen.
I keep coming back to the same idea. Minimalist, with a subtle detail that keeps it from feeling empty. A texture that feels real but does not draw attention to itself. And a design that scales up or down cleanly so there is no jarring switch when moving from one device to another.
There are excellent minimalist gradients and textures out there, but I wanted something that felt like mine, something that would not show up on someone elseβs screen a week from now. Just a calm backdrop that stays consistent and quietly personal.
Why ChatGPT?
Trying to get even a simple texture right by hand would have taken more time and patience than I have. I did not want to spend hours hunting for stock patterns or nudging tiny details around in a design tool. So I asked ChatGPT instead.
The back and forth was just faster than doing it alone. One idea, one tweak, one test. Enough to land on something calm, repeatable, and exactly the feel I had in mind.
What actually happened
It was only supposed to be a texture. Something soft, subtle, and easy to live with. I wanted one image that would sit quietly in the background without fighting for attention. That was the brief.
The first tests were nothing special. A few grain patterns, some gradients, a halftone that felt too sharp. I almost stopped there. Then ChatGPT suggested trying something else. Maybe a fabric look instead of pure grain. Maybe a stitched line to break the flatness. Small ideas, but enough to keep me curious.
Some of these early textures and patterns came out of DALLΒ·E too, another piece of the loop that made it easy to see versions I would never have drawn by hand.
One line turned into three. The gaps between them lined up with Fibonacci numbers because it felt better than guessing. The texture shifted from brushed suede to denim to carbon weave and back again, each version closer to something that felt tactile but still quiet. Every time I thought it was done, ChatGPT nudged it sideways. A different shade. A new grain. A cleaner offset. Nothing big. Just enough to see what the next version would look like.
Somewhere along the way, it started suggesting colours too. Shades it guessed I would probably like. It was spot on every time. No one else would care if the tone shifted slightly, but it never did.
It did not stay one image for long. The day version needed a night version. If it was going to be a system, it should switch when the light outside does too. The master files ended up big enough for a phone, a tablet, and a 5K screen without losing any detail. A shortcut handles the swap so I do not have to think about it, though figuring out how to change a light and dark background on iOS turned out to be more complicated than it should be.
What started as just a background turned into a small design system. Soft fabric, hidden numbers, a stitch band slightly off-center for a reason only I know. Not because I planned any of it, but because the back and forth made it too easy not to keep pushing. Sometimes all you need is someone, or something, to remember the details and suggest what feels right when you might have stopped.
The point, if there is one
There is no big takeaway here. Just a texture, a stitched band, a few hidden numbers, and the quiet logic that ties them together. No one else will notice any of it. That is the part I like the most.
What stands out is not the design itself but how it came together. If you know what you want, or at least what you do not want, AI turns into a kind of superpower. It makes the small things you want exactly right - possible for people who would never sit for hours tweaking pixels by hand. Things that might have taken weeks of trial and error before now get done in hours. Sometimes less.
This post is no different. Every line here came out of the same loop. I spent about an hour, end to end, writing this with AI, the same way the wallpaper happened. Not because it did the thinking for me; but because it made it easier to keep nudging each line until it felt right.
Sometimes the best thing it gives you is time to get the small things exactly right. The parts no one else will ever notice.
Some second blog post, this.
