How do I create the perfect phone wallpaper with Midjourney AI?

The new wave of AI art tools are amazing, but you often find yourself wondering what you can do with them. Well, one thing you can use them for is to create a bespoke wallpaper for your mobile phone. In this guide I’m going to show you exactly what settings to use to create the perfect phone wallpaper with Midjourney.

Related reading: Everything you need to know about Midjourney

Find your phone screen’s aspect ratio

The first thing we need to establish is your phone screen’s aspect ratio. This ensures that the images Midjourney creates are exactly the right size for your phone, so that you don’t end up with wallpaper that is stretched or squashed.

The easiest way to get your phone’s aspect ratio is to look it up on the brilliant GSM Arena. In the screenshot below, for example, we can see the Galaxy S22 has a 19.5:9 aspect ratio:

The ratio is listed long side first, but when it comes to giving Midjourney aspect ratio instructions we need to reverse that. Midjourney also only deals in whole numbers when it comes to aspect ratios, so we would use 9:19 for the Galaxy S22. We’ll show you the exact prompt to use in the next step.

Start creating phone wallpaper prompts in Midjourney

Now you can start asking Midjourney to start creating wallpapers.

So, for example, if you wanted an idyllic beach with palm trees for your phone background, you might enter the following prompt:

/imagine palm trees on a beach with white sand --ar 9:19 

You can see we’ve added the aspect ratio to the prompt, using the –ar parameter, to ensure it comes out at the right size. Remember to replace the 9:19 with the aspect ratio of your own device.

What works well for wallpaper images?

When it comes to creating phone wallpapers, you generally want an image than isn’t intricately detailed or too busy, as that can make it hard to see the app icons in the foreground. Abstract images also tend to work well.

I used the following prompt to create the image you can see above with the blobs and splatters of paint. Note we even used the term ‘wallpaper style’ in the prompt to give the AI further clues to what we were looking for, although that’s not always necessary:

/imagine Brightly coloured blobs of paint, splatters, wallpaper style --ar 9:19

You might choose a specific flower that you’re particularly keen on, and get Midjourney to render it in a particular style, like the poppies shown above, for which I used the following prompt:

/imagine detailed red poppies 2d floral stickers clip art on white clean background --ar 9:19

Or you might choose a specific item, such as an electric guitar, and once again use the AI to give it a specific style. The guitar works particularly well here because its long, slender shape matches the phone’s aspect ratio:

/imagine electric guitar, anaglyph --ar 9:19 

Give your wallpapers an artist’s style with Midjourney

To give your wallpapers added impact, you can ask the AI to apply a particular artist’s style. The Midlibrary.io website should provide plenty of inspiration, giving you lots of different artistic styles from different painters, photographers, illustrators and art movements.

The striking David Bowie portrait was created with the following prompt:

/imagine David Bowie looking straight down camera, by Alberto Seveso --ar 9:19 

The image of a man on the beach with his dog was created using:

/imagine Man standing on beach at sunset with a labrador dog by Quint Buchholz --ar 9:19 

And the Paul Klee style New York skyline was created with:

/imagine New York skyline in the style of Paul Klee --ar 9:19

You are free to use or adapt any of the prompts above, by the way. Don’t be frightened to experiment, to tweak prompts if you don’t get what you’re looking for the first time, and to scan what others are doing on Midjourney using the many Discord threads that you’ll get access to when you join Midjourney. They’re a great source of inspiration.

How to get the wallpaper on your phone from Midjourney

The easiest way to get the wallpapers onto your phone is via the Discord mobile app. Upscale your chosen image by pressing U1, U2, U3 or U4 under the relevant image. When that’s upscaled, hold down on the image and choose the option to save to your device.

Then find the image in your Gallery/Photos/Files app (or wherever you saved it) and hold down on the image again. You should be presented with an option to use as the phone’s wallpaper.

More content on Midjourney

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