Lighting effects are often used in modern web design to give a site an interesting and different look. Several months ago I published 40 Photoshop Tutorials for Lighting and Abstract Effects, which includes plenty of tutorials that can help you to get this type of look in your own work. Now, I’d like to share this gallery of sites that are putting those techniques into practice.
Many e-commerce websites aren’t the most attractive websites. There’s often a lot of clutter with little to distinguish the design from any other site. Of course, selling products is more important to an e-commerce site than having a pretty design, but these 50 examples show that some e-commerce sites display excellent design.
The color scheme of a website is obviously one of the most significant design decisions that needs to be made. When it comes to color schemes, there are all kinds of possibilities. Some use a bright, colorful scheme to create an attractive website. The sites that are featured in this post are using a simple color scheme of mostly black, white and gray.
Monochromatic color schemes can be used with any color, not just black and white, but we’ll be focusing on black and white here. Most of these sites use other colors sparingly, which can be extremely effective for making certain elements stand out. Also, because the element of color has been reduced in these designs, many of them rely heavily on typography and layout structure, as you will see in those being featured.
Last week I published a collection of over 50 excellent navigational menus for your design inspiration. Because I found more examples than I used in that post, and because others seemed to share my appreciation for menu design, I’ve decided to put together a second collection.
The Worldwide Blogger Bake Off
When I’m looking at excellent websites for design inspiration, one of my favorite aspects of design to notice is the navigation menu. While I enjoy seeing excellent designs of all types (minimal to artistic to colorful to dark) and various aspects of the site (including headers and footers), a well-designed and well-executed navigation menu can have more impact on my appreciation of a site than any other single piece of the design.
In this post I’d like to take a look at more than 50 stellar examples of navigation menus that positively impact the design of a website. The list includes a great deal of variety. Regardless of what you personally prefer, there should be some inspirational examples in here for you.
Footers are often an afterthought in blog design. I know firsthand, because my footer is about as basic and uneventful as it gets. The blogs on this list are excellent examples for the rest of us that the footer can be a helpful and interesting aspect of the design.
Some of the examples shown here use visual elements to make the design of the footer more interesting, and others simply focus on providing navigation or information in the footer that will help visitors.
Colorful websites are always a good source of design inspiration (See 25 Beautifully Colorful Websites, and 25 Beautifully Colorful Websites – Part 2). These 25 showcase designs make excellent use of color. Hopefully you’ll find at least a few for your own inspiration.
Web designers often browse through portfolio websites of other designers for inspiration and ideas that can be used in their own work. Photographers, like designers, have a need to display an attractive portfolio for their websites visitors, and many photographers have excellent portfolio sites. In this post I’d like to take a look at 25 of the best. This collection is based on the quality of the portfolio site itself, not necessarily the work being displayed inside the portfolio.
Web design galleries started out as a novel idea several years ago when the first few were launched to showcase excellent work of designers from all around the world, specifically those that were exemplary in their use of CSS. However, there are now literally hundreds of design galleries out there. Throughout the design community there are mixed reactions to design galleries. Many designers visit a few specific galleries on a daily or weekly basis to see what’s being added. Others get more annoyed each time a new gallery is launched.With a number of design galleries drawing significant traffic and advertising revenue, others who are wanting to run their own profitable websites are often drawn to the idea of a gallery. However, with so many established galleries out there already, the opportunities for new ones are rather limited in most cases. Still, some new galleries are finding ways to interest visitors through specialization in a specific niche. While niche galleries are unlikely to ever generate the traffic statistics of leading galleries like CSS Mania, they do offer something unique to visitors that can allow them to stand out from the hundreds of other galleries.
One of the first things new visitors will notice upon arriving at your website is your header. Some sites are able to make an excellent first impression by featuring an artistic or creative header. This mini gallery post is a collection of some of the more inspiring headers out there.
Updated regularly with articles, resources, and inspiration for web designers.
RSS Feed Email
