Back to School Challenge – Week 1 Roundup: #creatsydesk

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  Helena Motyl on October 8, 2025
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115 entries. One mockup. One week. Unlimited imagination.


Week 1 of our Back to School challenge is officially graded – spoiler: you all aced it. The theme was #creatsydesk, and we asked participants to design their dream creative desk using our dedicated desk mockup. Time to complete the task? Seven days. Result? A gallery full of clever ideas, bold palettes, and textures you can almost feel.


How to browse: Click any image to jump straight to the author’s page and explore more of their work and vibe. We promised to feature everyone – if you don’t see your project here, give us a nudge and we’ll add it.



Flowers & Plants

A classic motif that never phones it in. From sun-splashed meadows bursting with color to delicate bud studies, from palm fronds and dainty daisies to sculptural ferns, this category shows just how many directions “botanical” can go. Some desks feel like mini conservatories, others like a herbarium of pattern experiments – inky linework, painterly swathes, retro florals, lush tropicals. Consider it a living lesson in composition, scale, and flow!

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Animals & Bugs

Class pets, but make it design! We saw cheerful cartoon companions ready to hang out on your sketchpad, elegant birds (and a couple of delightfully snooty pigs) supervising from above, shoals of bright fish gliding across the page, pool-day pups, and brave turtles marching off to class. Butterflies were everywhere – fluttering softly across notebooks in dreamy color palettes – and they brought some other bug friends with them, too. The mood jumps from playful to poetic – proof that animal motifs can be both charming and sophisticated.


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Summer Style

When the bell rings, some of you head straight to the beach – so you brought the beach to your desks. Think tall palms, sunglasses, family road-trip vibes, sea-spray breezes, and a parade of ice-cream flavors. Warm gradients, sandy textures, and aquatic blues set the tone. These entries bottle that “last-day-of-summer-break” feeling and pour it over clean layouts and crisp type.


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Fresh Fruit

Snack break! Apples are the schoolyard classic, but you didn’t stop there. We spotted zingy lemons (perfect lemonade material), cherry duos, sweet strawberries, and satisfyingly geometric pineapples. Some patterns go full pop-art; others lean rustic – hand-drawn lines, watercolor bleeds, and soft stippling. Layer them across notebooks and sticky notes and you’ve got a color theory exercise you can actually taste.


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School Supplies

Proof that any object can be art! Twisty pencils, neat stacks of books, backpacks full of dreams, alarm clocks ringing in a fresh start, and whole rainbows of crayons and brushes. We loved the clever placement on the desk – rulers acting like borders, scissors slicing through negative space, tapes and clips adding tiny moments of shine. It’s a great study in icon scale and repetition without losing balance.


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Abstract Patterns & Shapes

Form takes center stage here: bold arcs on midnight navy, candy-pink tessellations, and Memphis-style cutouts share space with breezy brush strokes and wavy planner lines. There’s tilework symmetry, lattice logic, and just enough optical illusion to keep you from dozing off after lunch. A perfect study in rhythm, scale, and contrast… with extra credit for those playful color stories: berry pinks, minty teals, lilacs, marigolds, and deep midnight blues.


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Wild Cards

For everything that refuses to sit still in a single box – our favorite kind of homework. Motivational slogans and witty wordplay, abstract fields and geometric rhythm, happy emojis, star-dusted skies, tiny robots, and sushi that’s almost too cute to eat. These entries stretch the brief in the best way, showing how a desk can be a launchpad for… basically anything.


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Final Notes & Hall Passes

  • Roll call: 115 incredible Week 1 entries are featured here. If your piece is missing, ping us and we’ll fix it.
  • Explore more: Click any image to hop to the artist’s page and dive deeper into their portfolio.
  • Up next: Week 2 brings a fresh theme and a brand-new gallery. Sharpen your pencils, refill your coffee, and get ready to admire some art!


Thanks to everyone who joined Week 1 and turned desks into daydreams. Your creativity makes this challenge what it is – A+ all around.

back to school mockup mockups challenge creatsy creatsy challenge notebooks cover design graphic design
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Helena Motyl

Helena is an editor, proofreader and Internet marketing specialist. Both her professional and private life revolve around the written word.

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