While most modern desk setups are fairly neutral and lack personal touches, there’s nothing to say you can’t include a few choice items to complement your hardware and display your favourite hobbies or passions.
The psychology behind personalized workspaces
Environmental factors have a much greater impact on one’s mental state than most people give them credit for. Typically, a person walks into their typical workspace set up in their home to work at work. In other words, the typical workspace is designated as the place to go to get work done to fulfill one’s job obligations. However, by adding some anime flair to your workspace, you are creating visual associations and cues that remind you of things you love to be thinking about while you are at work.
Studies have shown that when designing spaces for learning, including personal items can lower stress levels and help students to better focus. Our brains react positively to familiar images and favourite colours when organizing a study space.
This isn’t about childish decoration.
I was going to say something about a difference in aesthetics, but I think there is more of a difference in the purpose of displaying stickers on a screen versus a wallpaper. There’s a big difference between slapping up random anime stickers all over your monitor and a themed wallpaper with your favourite anime show or style of anime. The latter is expressing yourself through your computer, using it as a part of personal expression.
Visual coherence over random decoration
While there are many great rules for designing an anime setup, there is one that rings especially true for all themed designs: sticking to a small colour palette and not over-accessorizing with too many characters from one franchise. While it can be tough to narrow down your choices and avoid including every character you love, a varied palette of colours can be a huge detractor to an otherwise stylish design.
Is anyone else into watching anime while having their RGB strips light up either based on moods and such or whats happening on the screen? I used to go through every single color, but it took way too much effort to switch between them every frame so I stick to what i feel fits the scene best.
Building layers of immersion
First, the surface of your desk. As one of the first things you see when sitting down to use your computer, your desk surface should probably inform the rest of your setup. Your anime desk mat is your work surface, but it is also a part of your overall visual language. So, it should fit within your overall aesthetic, while at the same time being a decent workspace.
Everything interacts with everything else. So your wallpaper should be able to fit with the physical items around your computer. A cool desk mat with some detailed art, for instance, is likely to clash with a wallpaper that has very detailed or busy patterns. You don’t want a tired design staring you in the face after hours staring at your computer screen.
While many consider the walls, floor, and furniture when decorating a themed room, it is also important to think about the audio. Playing your favorite anime soundtracks can add another dimension to the room’s theme and atmosphere.
Practical considerations for daily use
However when building an immersive setup you want as much immersion as possible, but at the same time the rig can’t become completely unusable. I have placed my monitor at an optimal angle and height for viewing as well as put all the crucial peripherals in a location that is easily accessible. This also gives me an easier time at cable management, since everything is in a relatively small area.
To avoid overloading your eye with the mass of storage products you need to keep your trading card collection organised, the storage has to be located between Themed Areas. This means that the card holders, bags and book boxes are stored around the display of extras, and are not visible except on the edges of the space. This means you can’t display them, but they won’t mess up the look of your trading card display either.
Most people fall in love with an anime theme before they realize that it is probably time to move on to a different form of enjoying anime. By the time you have completely saturated yourself in a highly acclaimed or enduring anime theme, you will have probably outgrown the theme before you can fully exhaust its resources and end up wasting money and heartache in the long run.
The compound effect of small details
Even individual components can have a synergistic effect that evokes a generally positive impression of a room. For me, the thematically relevant keyboard, mousepad, and mouse grip all come together with the smoothly integrated lighting to create the impression of having put some thought into the build as opposed to purchasing a bunch of random pieces and older hand-me-downs.
Most importantly we have tried to detail the organisation and layout of our hobby space to fit with our hobbies and interests. This is important for 2 reasons: firstly that we want to be able to maintain the space and secondly we will enjoy being there. If our hobby space is just another room of the house we will loose interest with it and see it as merely a part of the house rather than a completions to our daily activities.