A motion desktop, including a moving image, may be presented on a display screen of a processing device. Foreground items such as, for example, icons and associated text, or other information, may appear on a surface of the motion desktop. In embodiments consistent with the subject matter of this disclosure, foreground content may be rendered to a composing surface, which may be an alpha-enabled surface capable of presenting translucent items. A motion desktop module may render content for at least a portion of a background of the motion desktop to a respective shared memory, shared with a composer. The composer may periodically copy the rendered content from the shared memory to the composing surface, where the composer may compose and blend a scene from background and foreground content. The composed scene may then be presented as the motion desktop.