iPod Socks: Wallpaper
Each pixel in these wallpapers was lovely mouse-clicked by hand & is a throwback to the beloved 2004 iPod Socks.
Confession: I have a disproportionate, bordering on irrational, adoration for iPod Socks! I couldn't really explain to you why. Maybe the iPod Socks got wrapped up in the halo of the early days of owning my first iPod, with all the nostalgia and delight of discovering & enjoying new music while having all my favourite tracks all on one beautiful device. Or maybe they're just cute, and I'm obsessively weird about it. Who knows? There are loads of cute things in the world, but few are on par with iPod socks.
Introduced in October 2004, the iPod Socks were a knitted sleeve for the iPod to slip inside. Announced by Steve as a "revolutionary new product for your iPod," iPod socks came in a pack of six colours (green, purple, grey, blue, orange, and pink) and sold for $29. The product remained available until 2012, when it was sadly discontinued. I have a whole entry about the iPod Socks from back in January 2021, but for now, let's move on to the wallpapers themselves.
The Process
Before getting to the wallpapers, I wanted to devote a small section about how this wallpaper came to life. A few people have written to me asking me about detailing the steps I take in designing my wallpapers, so this section is for them!
I started this project by first spending time eyeballing the knitted pattern on the iPod Socks and then Googling "various knit patterns." I concluded that the iPod socks likely used something resembling a "rib stitch" (the pieces that look like a downward-facing arrow) and a "purl stitch" (the sections that look like jellybeans piled on top of each other).
A rib stitch is featured on the left, while a purl stitch texture is displayed on the right.
After studying these stitch patterns, I opened up Sketch and began outlining possible rib and garter stitch designs. The finished products were a single grey rib and purl stitch composed of three shades of grey.
Using a colour overlay & clipping mask allowed me to create a single knit pattern while only adjusting the colours behind each stitch - all of these rib stitches are grey with a different colour mask applied.
The next step was to begin creating tall columns of the vertically stacked rib stitches; I settled on a 5-column design. Layered underneath, I strung together long rows of the purl stitch, with the orientation of the stitch flipping with each row. To create a little more dimensionality to the design, I added a second layer of purl stitches in a slightly darker shade below the first. I then backed all four of these layers with a solid colour-matched background. Finally, because I started with an all-grey design, I was able to apply an overlay & clipping mask to each layer, allowing the stitch to take on the colour I placed underneath. This meant that rather than creating six different designs in six different colours, I could take a single design and apply the different iPod Sock colours behind it. I finished everything up with some shadowing, and voila! iPod Sock wallpapers were born!
Wallpapers
I am so pleased with the finished product! I had been mulling over doing something like this for a long time but continued to talk myself out of it because I was overwhelmed by something that seemed a lot more complex than it was. But breaking it down and seeing that all I needed was to create two building blocks helped me feel capable of learning and taking this project on.
The iPod Socks are available in the original six colours (just as Steve would have wanted: green, purple, grey, blue, orange, and pink) and are available for your iPhone. I experimented with creating Mac & iPad variants, but I felt they looked too busy as wallpapers, and I decided to scrap that project for the time being. Hit me up on Twitter if a desktop/iPad version would appeal to you, and I'll see what I can do).
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