While we like to write about web design here at Bluefaqs, I thought that it would be a nice break from the norm to showcase just where some of the action takes place in the home of a designer. As more people are turning to this idea of working from home both part-time and full, the home office setup has become the center point to where some amazing ideas have formed and taken shape.

I literally crawled through thousands of submissions to see how people go about creating this personalized space, focusing on lighting, monitor setups, decorations, peripherals and anything that makes it a beautiful productive place to get things done.

If your looking to setup a new home office from scratch, or are just in need of a redesign, here is a showcase of 50 Amazing Home Office Workstation Setups to help inspire you.

01. Leopard Fever | Crouching Donkey

02. Apple UMBP Setup | psleda

03. My Office v.3.0 Panorama | nuntius

04. My Desktop | Quattro Vageena

05. Temporarily Together | raw reflex

06. MacBook Pro and Benq E2200HD-1 | psleda

07. Apple Cinema Display Setup | veryMickey

08. New Office Setup (Sept. 09) | penningtonj

09. iMac | MB!

10. Workstation | ^_^

11. The Emotion Studio | timsamoff

12. My New Desk Done | steve price82

13. Spring in Cincinnati | ekalb

14. Home Office Full View | Salman S. Qadeer

15. New Silly Mac Setup 2 | michaelbystrom

16. iMac 24 2.4 | Rikyman

17. One More | Chris Marshall

18. The Serene Workspace | Schodts

19. Apple Setup with Ergotron Desk Stands | psleda

20. My Workspace | tuartboy

21. My Desk | Justin Griswold

22. My Messy Workspace | bigbold

23. Monitors Overview | mitch haile

24. IMAC08-004 | nycGRAEME

25. Home Studio | COPPERLINE

26. My Desk | kihlbom

27. Bedroom Workspace | LewSpeight

28. Setup | DeclanTM

29. Ikea Desk In The Home Office | Vince Welter

30. Workstation 2009 May | rus-star-dot-com

31. My Desk At Work | wallywallywoo

32. The (New) Famous Home Office | Stefan Didak

33. Minimalspace | Nick Humphries

34. My New, Even More Awesome Setup | Cold Eskimo

35. Setup: Revision Four | Will Dawson

36. New Setup | Rob ‘n’ Rae

37. New Mac Pro 8-core | JoshTrefethen.com

38. Office At Night | dehlz

39. Updated Apple Workspace | humedini

40. Workspace | B.Romain

41. My Desk | mathew.cotterill

42. My Home Office | dziner

43. My Desk, My Stuff | larissaherbst

44. My Office At New Place | dehlz

45. Desk Close Up | Anthony Grimes

46. Friday Evening Desk | Lalogo.fr

47. … | Works*

48. Home Office – 08 | Andrew Egenes

49. The System Attic | purplelime

50. Desktop | Normanbolditalic

If you’re needing an urban/ grungy feel for a design that you’re working on, you might consider using a concrete texture as a starting point. I’ve used several of these textures in past designs and thought that it would be a good idea to go ahead and round them up for easy access. This list is made up of some of the better looking stock concrete textures that I have come across.

Concrete Textures

Concrete Texture Packs

The technology of yesterday is rarely given the respect that it deserves, as it helped to inspire the gadgets that we can’t seem to take our hands off of today. No PS3 without the Atari, no iPhone without the brick phones of the 80′s and no MacBook Pro without the Apple Lisa.

Even though these early gadgets paved the way for the technological advances of today, I still can’t help but get a laugh out of 55lb. laptops and 64kb of storage that was considered top of the line tech 30 years ago. Without further ado, here is a collection of 35 Vintage Tech Ads featuring print ads and commercials.

IBM 5100 Portable Computer

Weighing in at 50 pounds, the IBM 5100 Portable Computer made its debut in September 1975. Available in 12 different models, the 5100 had a maximum capacity of 64k of storage. This “laptop” could be yours for a cool $8,975 – $19,975.

IMSAI 8080

The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer launched in early 1975. Some of its uses include small business data processing applications, computer sciences education and development and military and general government applications. If the IMSAI looks familiar to you, then you may recall seeing it in the 1983 pop culture movie WarGames starring Matthew Broderick.

Apple Print Advertisement

Ben Franklin using his Apple Computer to work on kite design.

TRS-80

Made by the Tandy Corporation and sold through their Radio Shack stores, the TRS-80 was released in 1977. It included a full-stroke QWERTY keyboard, smaller size, and a monitor. Starting price $600.

Hewlett Packard 9000

Hewlett Packard showing off one of their 80′s model computers.

Harris

The number-crunching power of the Harris computer.

Exxon Office Systems

Apparently Exxon once made computers.  Fully stocked with a dictionary, an electronic mailbox, a program for keeping calendars and scheduling meetings, and a tickler file. I need to call and make sure that my current computer came with a tickler file.

Processor Technology Sol

“If you’re an engineer, scientist or businessman, the Sol-20 can help you solve many or all of your design problems, help you quantify research, and handle the books too. For not much more than the price of a good calculator, you can have high level computer power”.$1,495 fully assembled and tested.

Osborne Executive Series

Texas Instruments TI 99/4

Released in 1979 at a price of $1,150. It was followed by the TI-99/4A which added an additional graphics mode, “lowercase” character comprised of small capitals and a full travel keyboard.

Kevin Costner in an old Apple commercial

Magnavox personal computer ad

Commodore Vic20 Commercial

Steve Ballmer sells Windows 1.0

AMTS Car-Phone

I could not find much info about AMTS, but apparently it allowed this guy to start work well ahead of his fellow employees.

Motorola DynaTAC 8000X

In 1983 the Motorola DynaTAC 8000X received approval from the FCC and become the world’s first commercial handheld cellular phone. You may recall seeing this phone on TV, it was used by Michael Douglas in the 1987 movie hit Wall Street, Zack from Saved by the Bell called Kelly on this phone several times, and more recently Tommy Vercetti made use of it in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.

Dial Page

Is seems as though Leonard Nimoy (aka “Spock”) was pushing beepers in his early days.

Western Radio Radivox Walkie Talkie

Broadcast through any radio and talk to your friends from up to a block away. It’s like magic.

Bell System

Bell was apparently transforming small towns in 1979.

Centel – brick cell phone

Mobile Phones of 1986

Magnavox Odyssey 2

Magnavox brought the first home video game system to the market in 1978, named the Odyssey. The Odyssey 2 was next in line and was designed to play programmable ROM cartridges.

Telstar Game Console

Produced by Coleco, Telstar is a series of video game consoles released from 1976 to 1978. There were 14 consoles released in the Telstar branded series.

Vectrex

The Vectrex Arcade System came with its own integrated vector monitor. The mom in this ad is a little too excited about the family’s new arcade system. You could pick one of these up in 1982 for $199.

Atari

Atari Inc. was founded in 1972 and their gaming system eventually became a rising star to gamers.

Nintendo

The Nintendo Entertainment System sweeped across North America in 1985 and featured several classic games such as Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt and Donkey Kong. Here you can buy the action set for a mere $99.99.

1978 Atari Commercial

80′s Nintendo Commercial

Game Genie

Honeybox

Experience three-dimensional sound reproduction.

Computer Accessories

Keep your floppy’s safe with these storage devices.

Printer Ribbons

I must be too young to remember these.

PC-Draw

State-of-the-art 1983 Pen Tablet?

Tech Catalog

High-tech gadgets in their day.

Using desktop tweaking software such as Rainmeter, Object Dock, Rainlender and a few others (more on these programs at the bottom of the post) some users have taken their desktop to a whole new level.

Lightning Sunset (Desktop 12)

The Mac Meets Windows Dual-Desktop

June Desktop

Desktop JUNE 2009

Windows Desktop in Monochrome

Big Red

My Current Desktop

New Desktop

DesktopNov24

“Time Floats By” {7-1-09 01}

Dec2008Desktop

White Out

Airship Bow

Faded and Desaturated

Black + White

Desktop 3

Desktop

Room of Shapes

Fanta Morgana (Desktop 16)

Come Together

Jacksterson’s Requium

Desktop

BrownAzul

Windows 7 Desktop

Starlight

Lonestar Desktop

RH: Phoenix Nebula

Home Server Desktop 1

Birdy – Left

Windows Seven

HomeDesktopFeb

Music & Rainbows

Naturelle Wallpapers

Project Curve 1.0

01-27-09

Enigma Desktop 2

Water Droplet Desktop

Wing (Desktop 14)

LS: Enigma in Rainmeter

FM: Variations on a Theme

How Do I Customize My Own Desktop?

Want to make your own? Here are three free utilities used to create and customize your own personal desktop.

Rainmeter -”Rainmeter is a feature rich system meter with support for multiple layers of png images (just like Rainlender). It can measure all of the basic system statistics such as physical ram, virtual memory, swap, and hard drive space. When coupled with MBM5, it can measure system temperatures and fan speeds. Rainmeter also has the ability to display the time as an analog clock with second, minute, and hour hands. Also available as a Litestep module.”

ObjectDock – “ObjectDock is a program that enables users to organize their shortcuts, programs and running tasks into an attractive and fun animated Dock. By allowing users to have more control over how they organize their desktop, users can take control of their desktop icons and shortcuts to have them be available when where and how they need them. This, all with the unique style and top-rate performance that ObjectDock is known to deliver!”

Rainlender – “Rainlendar is a feature rich calendar application that is easy to use and doesn’t take much space on your desktop. The application is platform independent so you can run it on all major operating systems: Windows, Linux and Mac OS X.The appearance can be customized with skins and you can even mix different skins together.”