Designing a website is not an easy task. Like any design, the blank page is the most frightening aspect. Then you’ve got to think of all the aspects beyond the aesthetics, the content, branding, usability, and functionality. You’ll probably be working within limits or with guidance from a client and you’ll have to meet the expectations and rise up against the global competition.
Luckily for you, there is a range of high-quality sites that specialize in web inspiration. You may want also to check out 15 Website Design Ideas to Try Now + Free Design Assets. Collating a huge variety of sites from designers around the world, that you can use to stimulate your creative juices. Here are 12 of the very best.
1. Behance
Behance is a social media platform owned by Adobe that aims “to showcase and discover creative work”. The Behance platform enables web designers and related professions to showcase their portfolios of visual work such as graphic design, fashion, illustration, photography, and more. It is free for members to use without upload limits and as such contains a huge amount of work, being the world’s largest site of this type.
If you want to find an inspiration site in a certain area the categorization filters will allow you to select creative fields such as illustration, game design, crafts, or creative tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, or Fresco. Alternatively, there is a general search bar for typed requests, which can also be filtered by locations, color, or even schools. Behance allows you to follow artists and artists’ mood boards, plus there is a Featured Gallery of projects chosen by the curators.
Huge and easy to use. Truly inspirational.
2. Dribbble
Dribbble is one of the biggest players in this field with over 4 million visitors each month. A social networking platform for digital designers and creatives as well as a design portfolio platform if you are searching for inspiration. Well used by graphic designers, icon artists, illustrators, and web designers.
To find your inspiration you need to explore. Filter work by type e.g. web design, animation, branding, typography, etc, and further by open tag search, color, creation tools (Made with), or downloads. There is also a time frame filter so you can be sure your chosen category is right up to date and fashionable. Once you’ve found someone or something you like you can follow or find more or even hire them.
With nearly 4 million shots uploaded there just has to be the spark for you.
3. Muzli
Known as the designer’s secret source, although with over 100,000 users it’s hardly that, Muzli is a browser extension that instantly delivers relevant design stories and inspiration on a daily basis. It is a way to discover the best web design inspiration, best websites, best logos, web trends, best mobiles sites and applications, minimalist websites, innovative illustrations, design features, unique websites, photography projects, and visual art, as well as opinions and articles from design experts across the web.
By mining leading web sources like Dribbble, Behance, Designspiration, ffffound, Mashable, Techcrunch, and over 120 others, Muzli has automated curation, to uncover the best design inspiration and news that you won’t normally find with a web search. This is a great and growing source of ideas for designers and creative professionals will keep you at the cutting edge of design trends and constantly inspired.
Start exploring, by signing up and indulging yourself in the world of design.
4. SiteInspire
siteInspire is a showcase site for fine web and interactive design. Website sites are submitted (over 200 per day) and then chosen and curated by Howells Studio, looking mainly for simplicity and clean design rather than gimmicky, overly decorative sites.
You can browse nearly 8000 sites by style, type, subject, platform, or open search. Each category is sub-divided and you can select multiple categories to refine your search. Visiting the selection will give you more information and similar sites.
Ideal for hand-picked, clean, simple designs.
5. Awwwards
Awwwards is a professional web design and development competition body. The aim is to recognize and promote the best innovative web design. It is a website competition that developers, agencies, and designers can submit to. Sites are selected and chosen as the site of the day, month, etc leading to the final site of the year.
The search section has options to search these winning sites or search other nominees via topic categories, tags, technologies used, colors, or countries.
High-quality inspirational content guaranteed.
6. Web Design Inspiration
Every day, the site handpicks the best web design inspiration, carefully chosen among different styles and industries, from all over the world. Including the top editor’s picks.
Extensive category choice of web designs by; industry, style, type, or color and filter tools within each category allow quick and easy navigation to your required area. You can then check out the design on a desktop, tablet, or mobile version or a mix.
A super hand-picked selection.
7. CSS Nectar
CSS Nectar is a CSS awards website design showcase for web designers and developers
You can either browse through the nominees or previous winners or through category, color, country, or feature plus the subcategories. There is also a huge archive. The individual sites are rated out of 10 for design, coding, and creativity and then given an overall average.
Top-quality selective designs, are ideal for design inspiration and also to glean what the judges like and don’t like.
8. Design Inspiration
Another well-known design inspiration site with an enormous range and variety of sites and also other design fields such as Architecture, Art, typography, and Photography.
Explore via the search bar or colors. the color search is particularly good opening up a full spectrum screen and allowing you to choose up to five colors and taking you to their combinations. Selecting a piece of work brings up a color palette, and selecting a color button will whiz you to a series of examples with the exact Hex number.
Neat and easy to use, especially good for color choices.
9. Best Website Gallery
The site name states it all, a site featuring other sites in a gallery form formerly known as MakeBetterWebsites. It’s a simple visual bookmark collection. that could be a source of inspiration for new projects or something else.
Search the selected designs via sites, links, or filters; colors, CMS, Style, and framework.
Ideal for pushing your creative buttons.
10. Admire The Web
A basic showcase site of the very best in website design for inspiration, its updated daily web design, and responsive design sites focus on minimal, clean, and responsive websites.
You search through tags and then categories or tags.
11. Commerce Cream
Commerce Cream specializes in showcasing eCommerce sites from Shopify. They collect, collate and highlight the most beautiful E-commerce experiences to help inspire designers, developers, and merchants. There is also information on the agencies behind the sites and the designers themselves. Online stores are submitted and then go through a selection process.
You can search through design agencies or browse through features sites although there are no filters.
E-commerce-specific inspiration.
12. Pttrns
Pttrns is a project of Robin Raszka and neatly categorizes screenshots of iOS including iPad, iPhone, Apple watches, and Android device apps. The categories are listed according to a vast array of functions like logins, searches, custom tab bars, home, timeline, etc.
Mobile device inspiration at its finest.
Final
A great selection of websites that group and collate sites from around the world to push you in the right direction. Great for designers or clients searching for the right look, feel, and combinations. Specific searches to save time or general searches to inspire ideas, up-to-date designer-driven, latest fashions and movements in a fast-changing world – it all helps you keep on top of your game.
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