This is part three of a five part series on how to clean up, prettify and streamline the usage of your desktop. You can also start with the introduction.

You can start with the article below or jump to the video:

Computing should be an aesthetic experience. Our environment impacts our mood and creativity. For this reason, and to provide us with distinct visual cues as to the function of each of our new folders, we’ll assign custom icons to them.

I’m using a couple tools to style my system wide folders. * Candybar from Panic to change my system wide folders and icons * Pixadex from Iconfactory to manage and sort through all the custom icons I’ve downloaded * The Agua and Agua Extras icon sets by the talented illustrator David Lanham.

I won’t go through Candybar usage here, but will show you how I use Pixadex to quickly modify the icons of my new desktop folders:

  1. Open Pixadex and find the icons you want to use
  2. Select the icon in Pixadex and Command-C to copy it

pixadex

  1. Open the Info panel for the folder you want to modify
  2. Select the small icon in the upper left of the info panel and Command-V to paste the new icon into it

info

Wash, rinse, repeat for each icon you want to modify.

Aesthetic Computing and Usability

Continue with Part 4. Capture and access easily