iOS 14 home screen ideas: Our favorite custom iPhone layouts so far

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Some inspiration for designing your dream iPhone home screen.

iOS 14 home screen ideas
(Image credit: Future)

iOS 14 home screen ideas for your iPhone can help you customize your icon and widget setup around a unified theme. 

iOS 14 has sparked a surge of creativity with the software’s new customization tools. You might notice the option to add widgets — or snippets of visual information that come in a variety of sizes — among your home screen’s apps. While Apple provides a collection of native widgets, there are a number of third-party widget design apps available, too.

As a result, users have hacked a way to create iPhone home screen themes, combining their new widgets with custom app icons. Perhaps you’ve seen the utterly incredible Animal Crossing and Microsoft Paint-inspired layouts trending online. 

Our guide on how to make custom iPhone widgets and app icons with iOS 14 explains how to go about designing the display of your dreams, but if you’re in need of some inspiration, or just want to see how clever the internet can be, keep reading for a round up of iOS 14 home screen ideas.

1. Hand-drawn doodles

Relive the days when crude doodles were cool. Microsoft Paint makes everyone nostalgic, for better or for worse — either way, this homage is pretty awesome. But if you don’t have access to a machine with MS Paint, any of the best drawing apps can help you design your very own hand-drawn icons. 

2. Old-school iOS

This might be another throwback theme, but hey, any year is better than this one. You can’t restore bygone iOS software to your iPhone, but you can recreate the aesthetics of early-2010s Apple devices with old-school app icons. The best part? You still get to charge with a lightning cable. Even better if you have an ancient iPod touch for reference.

3. Monochrome

There are a couple different routes to take when organizing a monochrome iOS 14 home screen. You can make each page a different color of the rainbow by separating apps based on their original icon colors. Or, you can make custom app icons that match a single color. An all-black layout is especially sleek, although any color will work.

4. Pastels

Pastel colors are ideal for spring, but can be used all year round to give your iPhone home screen a soft, Miami Vice vibe. Light pinks, purples, blues, yellows and greens look great together, so unlike a monochrome theme, a pastel one provides a broader color palette. 

5. Neon

The ’80s-inspired Neon trend has infiltrated iPhones, and we have to admit, it looks pretty mesmerizing. When you turn all your app icons into miniature neon signs against a dimly-lit background, it creates a cool depth effect on your display. Check out this link for a collection of neon icons you can use to transform your iOS 14 home screen.

6. Neutrals

If eye-catching colors aren't your thing, try out this neutral iOS 14 home screen idea. Something about the minimalism of beiges, nudes and charcoals make us feel like our most polished selves. 

7. Animal Crossing

Moving away from color themes and into fandom-inspired iOS 14 home screen ideas, this recreated Nook phone from Animal Crossing: New Horizons might be the most incredible custom layout we've seen yet. You can use any of the best Nintendo Switch games as your inspiration, and even turn your gameplay screenshots into photo widgets.

8. Minecraft

The deceptively-simple looking Minecraft is still one of the hottest games around. If you're a Minecraft fan, you might appreciate constructing an iOS 14 home screen theme, using icons as your building blocks. And if you're not a fan, well, 8-bit icons look cool no matter what.

9. Star Wars

Star Wars can be interpreted for several different iOS 14 home screen ideas, although if it were up to us, we'd revolve each page around a trilogy, or maybe a character. It depends how many apps you have. This Lego Star Wars homage is clever, too.

10. Avatar the Last Airbender

Ever since ATLA and The Legend of Korra hit Netflix, there's a renewed interest in the Nickelodeon sagas. As two of the best Netflix shows to binge watch now, these related series make stellar iOS 14 home screen themes. 

Kate Kozuch
Kate Kozuch

Kate Kozuch is the managing editor of social and video at Tom’s Guide. She writes about smartwatches, TVs, audio devices, and some cooking appliances, too. Kate appears on Fox News to talk tech trends and runs the Tom's Guide TikTok account, which you should be following if you don't already. When she’s not filming tech videos, you can find her taking up a new sport, mastering the NYT Crossword or channeling her inner celebrity chef.