Your city as a wallpaper
Your phone and computer are what you look at most in a day. A map of your city, your neighbourhood or a place you want to return to makes a quiet, very personal wallpaper. This guide explains how to make one that fits each screen.
Why a map works as a wallpaper
A good wallpaper has to let you read what sits on top of it: the time, the icons, the windows. Photos tend to steal the show; a line drawing, by contrast, has an even texture that competes with nothing.
A map also tells a story. The neighbourhood you live in, the city where you studied or the island of a holiday are recognisable at a glance, and every time you unlock your phone there is a small memory.
Dark maps, with light lines on an almost black background, are especially good for this: they are easy on the eyes at night and on OLED screens they use a little less battery.
Size: choose the screen, not the paper
In PlotMyMap, under the Screen group of sizes there are two formats meant for this: Phone (9:19.5), the ratio of almost every current phone, and Screen (16:9), that of almost every monitor, laptop and TV. The second turns to landscape by itself.
The ratio is what matters: the phone or computer will fit the image to the exact size of its screen. If your monitor is 16:10 or your phone a little wider, the system trims a thin strip off the edges, without distorting the drawing.
Scale reads differently here: there is no ruler to measure with, so think about how much ground you want to see. In the phone format, at 1:10,000 close to a kilometre fits across, a neighbourhood; at 1:25,000, 2 to 3 km, a city centre. In the screen format, at 1:25,000 some 7 or 8 km fit from side to side.
Pixels: which quality to ask for
For a screen, pixels are what count. Below the quality setting, PlotMyMap tells you how many the image will have before you download it.
For a phone, print quality (300 dpi) gives about 1,276 × 2,764 pixels: more than the screen of almost any phone, which is usually between 1,080 and 1,290 wide. That keeps the drawing sharp even on high-density screens.
For a Full HD monitor (1,920 × 1,080), medium quality falls just short (1,890 wide): better use print quality, which gives 3,780 × 2,126 and also covers 2K screens. For a 4K monitor, maximum (600 dpi) is more than enough.
More pixels do no harm: the system scales the image down and the lines stay smooth. Fewer do: the image gets stretched and fine lines look blurry.
Where to put the centre
On a phone, the top is taken by the clock and the bottom by the icon bar or the lock-screen shortcuts. What matters, your street or your square, works best a little above the centre, in the band that stays clear.
On a computer the same happens with the taskbar or the dock. Desktop icons also tend to sit on the left: if the important place is slightly right of centre, it will always show.
The title is written below the map. On a phone it may end up hidden by the bottom icons; if you will use the map on the home screen, try it without a title, or let the map say the name itself with place names switched on.
Set the margin to zero if you want the drawing to reach the edges. If you prefer the feel of a print, leave a few millimetres: they will be the paper colour, like a mat.
Colours that rest the eyes
For a wallpaper, soft contrast matters most. Icons and text need to stand out against the map, not the other way round.
The Night theme puts light lines on an almost black background and is the most comfortable in dark mode. Blueprint gives an architect's-plan feel that looks great on a computer. For light mode, Black ink or Sepia on light paper are quiet and elegant.
If you want to fine-tune, lower the contrast by hand: a very dark grey paper instead of black, or grey lines instead of white. The map still shows, but leaves the spotlight to what sits on top.
A trick: make two versions of the same map, one light and one dark. iOS, Android and desktop systems can all switch wallpaper with light or dark mode.
Setting it as your wallpaper
Download the map as PNG and move it to the device if you did not make it there. Then:
iPhone: in Settings, Wallpaper, add a new wallpaper and pick the image from Photos. Adjust the framing with two fingers and choose whether it goes on the lock screen, the home screen or both.
Android: press and hold an empty spot on the home screen, open Wallpaper (or Wallpaper and style) and pick the image from the gallery. Menus vary a little by brand.
Windows: right-click the image and choose Set as desktop background, or go to Settings, Personalisation, Background. macOS: in System Settings, Wallpaper, add the photo or the folder.
If the system crops something you wanted to see, go back to the map, move the centre a little and download it again: it is quicker than fighting the phone's crop.
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