I like to hide all icons or folders on my Desktop when I need to be more productive or when I'm presenting. This can be done with:

  # hide desktop icons and folders
  defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop 0
  killall Finder # restarting Finder is required

  # unhide desktop icons and folders
  defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop 1
  killall Finder # restarting Finder is required

I made myself a convenient bash alias for this which lets me simply toggle the desktop on and off Here is a gist: https://gist.github.com/berndverst/6f58c0d6aedddb6c06c23e57d...

  toggledesktop () {
    if [[ $(defaults read com.apple.finder CreateDesktop) -eq "0" ]]
    then
        export SHOWDESKTOP=1;
        echo "Unhiding Desktop icons"
    else
        export SHOWDESKTOP=0;
        echo "Hiding Desktop icons"
    fi
    defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop $SHOWDESKTOP
    killall Finder
  }