With the millions of websites on the internet, having a unique design is a must to get your visitors' attention. The following sites displayed below are the few that I personally find inspiring. What made them unique is they used various traditional art techniques and applied to modern web design technology. The result is breathtaking and simply beautiful.
Artistic gallery
I made a large screenshot of the sites in case they redesign their sites. Click on the thumbnail to view the large image, click on the URL to visit the live site.
apparelidea.com
biola.edu/undergrad
chrizdee.de
daleharris.com
darasgarden.com
electricpulp.com
timeforcake.com
freepeople.com
happycog.com
hitotoki.org
stuffandnonsense.co.uk
hollyhue.com
jp33.com
jrvelasco.com
kcrevolution.org
kenedik.com
kevadamson.com
kutztown.edu
antoniorozco.com
maaike-annegarn.com
noemie-chevaux.com
noodlebox.net
contrabrand.net
ohiosadd.org
principlesofbeautiful..
snagt.net
spanish-portuguese
stereohype.com
playstop.net
stolendesign.net
cambrianhouse.com
contrecoups.com
kevinpottsdesign.com
Common techniques
After browsing the gallery, have you noticed what they have in common?
Watercolor - very subtle watercolor effects.
Collage - feminine collage.
Typography - strong emphasis of serif fonts.
Hand writing - commonly used for menus.
Bright colors - magenta, cyan, yellow, and green.
Nice list!
Thanks, these are some good sites I did not know about.
Really nice,
how do you get that watercolor effects? In photoshop?
Awesome! I was trying to do a web design purely from a paper doodle and then scan them and chop them down for XHTML and CSS.
I’ve always wanted to include watercolor as well as handwriting into my websites. I didn’t know if it was going to be too cliche though but if I like it, I shouldn’t care about clicheness, right? Anyway, great list. They truly are an inspiration to me.
urban outfitters should be part of this list.
http://www.urbn.com
One of my favourites is happycog.com. It has a simple and brilliant layout.
“how do you get that watercolor effects?”
paper, watercolor, scanner. painfully obvious, isn’t it?
Honestly, I’d put your site around the top of any list of beautiful sites. :D
@ Harmen: I think those are Photoshop Brushes.
Excellent list, I really like electricpulp.com …..
Personally I hate serifs on fonts and try not to design with them. The only problem with some of these sites is how long will they load for dial up users?
I would agree with Colin on the scanning in of watercolors.
@Timothy – it would depend on which site you’re talking about, but I’m almost positive (95% sure) that the watercolor effects on the happycog.com site was done by hand on paper and scanned in. Jason Santa Maria, the leading designer in this project, does an article on is blog about this.
@ Jermayn Parker – is that still a problem nowadays? I was just asking myself this question a few days ago – whether dial-up is as widespread and even a concern when dealing with higher-end graphics. I wasn’t able to find any statistics to help us out unfortunately.
@Matt, Timothy, Harmen – There are many ways to create watercolor effects. I used Photoshop Pencil tool with custom brushes.
@Jermayn Parker: Serifs affect how fast a webpage loads? Wow! I myself have been using a lot of serifs in my designs and all this time it’s been affecting the loading speed?! WTF!
@Matt Johnson: That works? I can’t believe it! I definitely have to give it a try myself someday and unfortunately, I’m still using a dial-up connection. Good thing I can still survive! LOL!
@Nick: Nice!
I’m surprised this list didn’t make it to the Digg’s front page.
Is this a new blog? I’ll be definitely coming back to it often.
The sites mentions are lovely indeed. However, there are TOO many sites that are laid out like happycog.com. I can’t deny that it’s a nice site – the watercolors are beautiful but I’ve seen so many sites that have the same layout.
Wow! What an awesome list. Very inspirational. Definitely adding to del.icio.us. Thanks for gathering it!
I just found your website and it is BEAUTIFUL! Excellent job on the design. It has many elements I’ve not seen before on the web, especially a WP blog (oh, and Inspiration Bit pointed me over here. Thanks IB!)
Nice list! Small suggestion: maybe you should try _blank on your hyperlinks.
Wow!!! what an amazing list. I’ve tried visiting those other site, all I can say that it was a great peace or work. Very nice art. And for the others are really nice too. nice job.