Rancho Twilight
A year later, we return to Rancho Cucamonga right after the sun goes down. Introducing Rancho Twilight.
Last May, I released OS X Rancho Cucamonga, a playful wallpaper inspired by the decade-old joke Craig Federighi made at WWDC 2014 when he mused about Apple's "Crack Marketing Team" visiting locales in California to scout the name for the next version of the Mac operating system. During their travels, Craig teased names like OS X Oxnard, OS X Weed, and, of course, OS X Rancho Cucamonga.
Craig Federighi at WWDC 2014 joking about the next version of OS X being named Rancho Cucamonga. Image Credit: Apple.
OS X Rancho Cucamonga became one of the most popular wallpapers I've ever created. A year old, it still pops up in my feed, with people regularly using it in their YouTube Videos and enjoying it on their devices.
A year later, I wanted to return to Rancho and create an updated variation of the wallpaper. From the start, I planned to make a twilight/dusk variation that would work well when paired with either light or dark modes. Although I originally planned for Rancho Twilight to perfectly match its predecessors, the more I worked on it, the more I felt constrained by the need to stick to their conventions. Partway through the process, I abandoned the plan to have them perfectly match the previous Rancho Day & Rancho by Night wallpapers. This allowed me to adjust and expand the background mountain range's look, add more texture to the sand, and include an expansive celestial sky in the final design.
The wallpaper was built inside Sketch and assembled inside Pixelmator Pro. I started with copies of the original Rancho files, created a new twilight colour palette for the sand, mountains, and sky, and then exported the pieces into Pixelmator Pro for assembly, which I felt more proficient using to add the finishing touches and final colour adjustments.
Overall, I'm thrilled with the final product, including details like the shooting star and the addition of one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy. Rancho Twilight is available for the Mac, iPad, and iPhone, and yes, both tree and tree-less versions are available. Enjoy!
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