According to aspects of the present disclosure, certain areas of the display screen are logically considered to be “privileged.” For example, a user may run a utility program and selected areas of the wallpaper to be privileged. In another example, a utility scans the wallpaper looking for, say, a face or text and marks the location around the face or text as privileged. In any case, when an icon (or other visual information) needs to be placed on the display screen, the icon is preferentially placed at a location that does not overlap with the privileged areas. If no non-privileged area is available, then an alert can be sent to the user.