Solarith Home

Interior Design for Small Spaces

  • Apartments
  • Design Styles
  • Home Decor
  • SHOP
Hi, welcome to Solarith!

Connect

Home, Organization · September 25, 2020

How I Customized my iPhone Home Screen

Happy Friday, y’all! Today I’m going to walk you through the step by step process of how I customized my iPhone home screen in iOS 14. I have to warn you, this is probably going to be a longer post than normal. It can be pretty time consuming to set things up, especially since most of the guides out there can be difficult to follow! 

I’m going to include as many screenshots as possible. Hopefully, that way you can get an idea of how exactly to go about this. Before I begin, let me show you my own screen! 

It has gone through a few different iterations, but I’m so happy with how customizing my iPhone homescreen turned out! 

iOS 14 personalized home screen

What I love about this iOS update is that you can customize your iPhone home screen by arranging things in a way that makes you happy. Color coding your apps isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but I included some screenshots of my favorite quotes, candies, flowers, and fruits to give me something to smile about when I look at my phone. Additionally, I really like that you can add widgets to emphasize the information you think is important – this isn’t perfect by any means, but I have found it useful! Finally, I appreciate that you can hide apps. As you can see, I have a LOT of apps, and I have even more of them hiding in my app library. I like hiding the ones I don’t use that frequently; doing so allows me to find the apps I use more frequently with greater ease. 

Well, now that you have my thoughts on the update, let’s get started! 

Contents hide
1 How To Make an Aesthetically Pleasing Home Screen in iOS 14
1.1 Supplies
1.2 Before We Begin
1.3 Guide to Shortcuts
1.3.1 1. Open Shortcuts
1.3.2 2. Click “+” in the upper right hand corner
1.3.3 3. Click the ellipses in the upper right hand corner and name the app
1.3.4 4. Click “Add to Home Screen”
1.3.5 5. Click the icon listed under the header “home screen name and icon”
1.3.6 6. Select one of the images you made – this will be what your app will look like on the homescreen
1.3.7 7. Name the app – sometimes the original name disappears on me at this point, so I usually need to rename it here
1.3.8 8. Click “Done” in the upper right hand corner
1.3.9 9. Click “Add Action”
1.3.10 10. Click “Scripting” then ” Open App”
1.3.11 11. Choose the app you want to open – I chose “Weather”
1.3.12 12. Click “Done”
1.3.13 13. Marvel at your new app! Then, move your original weather app to your app library so you no longer see it.
1.4 Guide to Widgetsmith
1.4.1 1. Open Widgetsmith
1.4.2 2. Select the size widget you want to create (I chose “add small widget)
1.4.3 3. Select the new widget
1.4.4 4. Click on “default widget”
1.4.5 5. Select what you want your widget to be – I chose Photo to add a new image to my home screen
1.4.6 6. Click “selected photo” at the bottom of your screen
1.4.7 7. Click “choose photo”
1.4.8 8. Select an image from your camera roll – I chose tis one of sour candy!
1.4.9 9. Click on the back button in the upper left hand corner, then hit “save.” Your new widget will show on the list!
1.4.10 10. Next, exit out of widgetsmith and go to your home screen. Navigate to adding a new widget – I have an iPhone 8 and I edit my home screen by holding my finger down to the screen, then clicking the “+” in the upper right hand corner – not sure if this is how every other iPhone model works!
1.4.11 11. Scroll down and select the “widgetsmith” icon – it will automatically show “small,” but you choose this for any size widget you want to add.
1.4.12 12. Click “add widget.” The latest widget that you made will automatically pop up onto the last screen you were on! If you made several widgets all at once, no biggie! Click on the widget and select select a different widget from your widget list (how many times can I saw widget in a sentence?!).
1.4.13 13. Marvel at your cute new widget!

How To Make an Aesthetically Pleasing Home Screen in iOS 14 

Supplies

  1. An iPhone with iOS 14
  2. Shortcuts
  3. Widgetsmith
  4. Canva – or your preferred image editing app 

Before We Begin

Firstly, before you start customizing your iPhone home screen you need to decide how you want to set things up. Are you looking to add a few widgets not automatically offered by Apple, display pictures, or change the appearance of your apps? 

If you want to change the look of your apps (see the first image in the gallery above), you will follow the “Guide to Shortcuts” below. If you are looking to add widgets or images (see the other gallery images), you will follow the “Guide to Widgetsmith.” Are you looking to do both? You’ve come to the right place! You’ll need to follow both guides to fully customize your iPhone home screen. I recommend splitting your project up into one or more sessions, as it can take a while to get the hang of things. 

Before you start working on either guide, you will need to select a colorscheme. I recommend finding an image you like on Pinterest and copying the picture into Canva. Once the image is there, You can make multiple sheets in your Canva project to serve as your new app icons. To do this, click on the “document colors” to select the colors that are most prevalent in your image. Once you have made sheets with all of the document colors, download the images to your phone. Voila! You are ready to get started. 

Guide to Shortcuts

Now that you have all of your new icons, you can begin working on replacing your existing app icons with the new, prettier images. This guide will walk you through how to create a shortcut to open the Weather app. You would follow the same procedure for any other app 

1. Open Shortcuts 
This is what your home screen should look like
2.  Click “+” in the upper right hand corner 
3. Click the ellipses in the upper right hand corner and name the app 

4.  Click “Add to Home Screen” 
5. Click the icon listed under the header “home screen name and icon”
6. Select one of the images you made – this will be what your app will look like on the homescreen 
7. Name the app – sometimes the original name disappears on me at this point, so I usually need to rename it here

8. Click “Done” in the upper right hand corner
9. Click “Add Action”

10. Click “Scripting” then ” Open App”

11. Choose the app you want to open – I chose “Weather”
12. Click “Done” 
 13. Marvel at your new app! Then, move your original weather app to your app library so you no longer see it. 

 

Guide to Widgetsmith

If you made it through all that, congratulations! Widgetsmith is actually super easy to use! Go through the following steps to make your widgets: 

1. Open Widgetsmith
2. Select the size widget you want to create (I chose “add small widget)
3. Select the new widget
4. Click on “default widget” 
5. Select what you want your widget to be – I chose Photo to add a new image to my home screen 
6. Click “selected photo” at the bottom of your screen
7. Click “choose photo” 
8. Select an image from your camera roll – I chose tis one of sour candy! 
9. Click on the back button in the upper left hand corner, then hit “save.” Your new widget will show on the list! 
10. Next, exit out of widgetsmith and go to your home screen. Navigate to adding a new widget – I have an iPhone 8 and I edit my home screen by holding my finger down to the screen, then clicking the “+” in the upper right hand corner – not sure if this is how every other iPhone model works! 
11. Scroll down and select the “widgetsmith” icon – it will automatically show “small,” but you choose this for any size widget you want to add. 
12. Click “add widget.” The latest widget that you made will automatically pop up onto the last screen you were on! If you made several widgets all at once, no biggie! Click on the widget and select select a different widget from your widget list (how many times can I saw widget in a sentence?!). 
13. Marvel at your cute new widget! 

 

Whew, that was a lot! Let me know if you end up customizing your home screens! I am obsessed with seeing what everyone does with theirs, they are all so unique! If you want to organize a bit, but aren’t quite ready to take the plunge into home screens, check out my post on planner/notebook organization! 

If you made it this far, I love you 🙂 Thanks for reading! 

Posted By: Erika · In: Home, Organization

Puerto Rico Engagement Pictures

You’ll Also Love

apartment appliancesThese are the Only Appliances You Need for Your First Apartment
bedroom storage furniture13+ INSANELY USEFUL APARTMENT STORAGE FURNITURE ESSENTIALS
studio apartment decor ideas35+ Insanely Easy Studio Apartment Decorating Ideas on A Budget

Get on the List

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search

Meet Erika

Southern transplant adjusting to life in the northeast. If you need me, I can be found online shopping, decorating, and trying to maintain a decent kale to burrata ratio.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Disclosure
  • Terms and Conditions

Get Caught Up

  • 53+ College Apartment Essentials You Can’t Live Without
  • The Cutest College Apartment Decor For Every Room In Your Home
  • The Best Japandi Sofas for Every Budget
  • Japandi Bedrooms: Everything You Need to Know
  • 25+ Japandi Living Room Design Ideas You’ll Want to Copy

Join the List

Archives

Partners


On the Blog

  • Style
  • Wish I Was Wearing
  • Beauty
  • Fitness
  • About Me
  • Wedding Suite

Get on the List

Connect

Follow on Instagram

Copyright © 2023 Solarith Home · Theme by 17th Avenue