The Nearly Textless Home Screen


We’ve seen so many text-only home screens lately, but reader crstemple took his home screen in the complete opposite direction — removing text from nearly the entire homescreen for a very unique look.

He’s still got a little bit of text in there on the calendar widget, but that’s about it. We’ll leave it to him to explain his setup:

  • LauncherPro for my launcher (the free version is more than sufficient for my needs) set to “Hide Icon Labels”, with dock icons from The Icon Factory‘s spectacular “Arcade Daze” collection. The centre “Finder” icon on each dock is the app drawer.
  • Transparent Clock widget.
  • Fancy Widgets on both the Homescreen and the Left Screen, set to display the current temperature in the menu bar.
  • SwitchPro widgets for the 4G toggle, WiFi, Battery, Brightness, and Autosync controls on the Homescreen, Vibrate/Silence and Bluetooth toggle controls on the Left Screen, and Flashlight, Speaker, Tethering, GPS, aeroplane Mode and Unlock toggle on the Right Screen. (I have completely forgotten what Android was like before these widgets waltzed into my world.)
  • SiMi Folder widgets for my “Arcade,” “Media,” “News and Blogs,” and “Shopping” folders. Icons also from the previously mentioned “Arcade Daze” collection.
  • Simple Calendar widget for the Left Screen calendar
  • Stock Picture Frame widget on the Right Screen displaying a ridiculous and unexplainable vectorscope I encountered on the job.
  • “Linen” wallpaper, found via the app Zedge.
  • This lock screen, generated via the esteemed WidgetLocker, using the “Honeycomb” lock and the wallpaper “Paint Art,” also found via Zedge.

For clarification (considering the lack of labels on the screens and various changed icons), here are my homescreen applications:

On the left screen: Google Reader and Wunderlist on the main screen, and Google Maps, Jeannie, Google Music, and the Android Market on the dock.

On the home screen: Twitter and Google Music on the main screen, and the Android stock browser, stock messenger, Gmail, and Caller on the dock.

On the right screen:

Google Docs, Evernote, Inkpad, stock voice recorder, stock calculator, and Mint on the main screen, and the stock camera, calendar, contact list and settings on the dock.

My mindset going into the making of this layout was to try to fuse function with familiarity and form. When I open the screen first thing in the morning, I’m told base information I want right away: “What time is it? How cold is it? What are my friends doing? How much spam did I get? Let’s get some tunes and some Angry Birds going.”

Next to the left, once I’ve woken up, I see some more complex information that I need to know as quickly as possible to wake me up and get me focused for the day ahead: “What am I doing today? What’s the weather like this week? What’s in the news? How do I get to my interview?”

My right screen, to be completely honest, is the most untouched part of my phone besides the pre-loaded Nascar app. This screen is primarily used for heavy productivity for work that comes out of the blue and situations I can’t resolve with my first two screens: “How much do I have in my bank account? What’s 25 divided by 16? This sounds like an important lecture. WTF, I’m on a plane!?”

As my day progresses, the screens and the docks tend to blend into one uniform, interchangeable system that has worked seamlessly for me.

The Nearly Textless Home Screen


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