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Great post, All the designs are inspirational layouts!

Undeniably beautiful designs, but dark websites remain in the realm of web designers rather than web content publishers.

I’ve seen people try to use dark designs for content-heavy websites, I’ve tried it too, and it just doesn’t work as well as a light design would.

For design sites though, stunning.

Awesome collection! Inspiring no doubt :)

Great article. Nice way to get inspiration.

“Otherwise we’ll break this series of articles and will offer you another content.”

Nothing like a threat to make me want to bookmark you.

Dark design just looks great if you know how to handle bright text colors on gloomy backgrounds. Your first option should be using white for the continuous text.

“Dark pages” have an elegant and classic look if they are done the right way. Indeed, it’s more difficult to create a working “dark” page instead of creating a white one.

Photos or pictures are working very well on a black background. The colors, the brightness and the contrast of the photo seem to be much “sharper” in contrast to placing pictures on bright backgrounds.

On the other hand i just read (sorry don’t know the source anymore) that text written on bright backgrounds would be approx. 30% faster to read. Greetings, Dan.

One thing I’ve noticed from dark sites is that after you’ve been reading one for a while and then look away from the monitor you see lines before your eyes – now that’s disturbing

But I do like dark sites! They always manage to look cool, and the ones above are definately some very cool looking sites. Nice list.

Really good examples.

It shows that we didn’t need to use “light” colors to have a great design; different from that “design pattern” that we have today.

Great sites!

Thanks for the inclusion of my site, guys… I’m truly honoured!

Lots of really great sites in that list, many of which I’m jealous of myself – especially Snagt as Ive never seen it before

A great list. Rusty Lime should have been in there as well: http://www.rustylime.com

Another great one! Thanks Guys

I like all the templates. It shows that always light colors are not good. Dark colors can also make the great designs.

I think EbonMusic does the best job with lighting; they never seem to over-contrast or under-contrast. All of these are great designs, though, I feel. :)

No No No No Nooooooooo!

Darn. Now I have to lock myself in a room for at least a week to learn all the neat tricks myself…

That’s really incredible work, thank you!

silver_fox Thank you for showing an intrest in my site. If you don’t mind me asking. Where did you hear about my site? Enjoy.

J.A. Catero

Very goof and interesting !!!

I have one more link to this post (Dark Design) harddays.net

This is site about underground music in Uzbekistan.

Yea styles are much easier to make these days and with so many templates out there even web site designers who are starting out can make a site looks great in a matter of minutes.

hi,

Thanks for your kind opinion about my work ;)
It’s a real pleasure of mine to be the one of this 50’s

Dahlbäck is the best!

Dark designs are OK but the problem is with advertisers – according to my past and present experience they do not trust to advertise on dark web pages because it gives them sort of “underground” or maybe “something illegal” feeling. And naturally they don’t want their company to be connected in anything “illegal” …

best dark site I’ve seen that is extraordinarily elegant with thoughtful and intelligent posts is

http:theerrantaesthete.com
(Essentials for the Cocktail Swilling Savant)

im looking for a dark design for my own site, its like froggy and pond related – these give some great tips thanks alot.

Ohh la la – love the creativity.. some of the designs are very chic and pop-culturish :)

Albinora..

These are very fresh layouts. They are highly inspirational.

Someone say dark background is very relax for eyes.

Great list!
I’d like to add my dark website design to the list: http://www.brianwebdesign.com

very nice

i like mostely all those dark designs ( also have it in my room at home).most i love that viscusi`s page.its awesome-this mixture from dark,impressive and romatic but also elements from clean-chic.wonderful and very inspiring!

coolll…

Hi. Good site.

these themes are beautiful, are any of them available as wordpress theme downloads?

thanks,I really agrree with these points,I also will try these points in the designs for my site and my clients’ site.

Not really feeling any of those designs. Maybe I’m prejudice to the darker layouts, but I really do find them hard to read. They just come off uninviting and unbalanced. I feel the same way in print. And it’s not just about ink waste, although, that’s a big gripe for me, as well.

I had to laugh, too, because the first website that I thought was half-decent was the http://www.snagt.com link up top (3rd one down), and the site is now on a white background and much brighter. Much better IMHO. And yes, I realize this post is from 2007. In fact, a lot of those sites have “new portfolio coming soon!” messages, which makes me wonder if they’ve finally gotten bored of being in the dark.

Be wary of the dark side… :}

Hello guys,

I would like to suggest that one which is minimalist and really nice too.
http://www.krispykrush.com/

What do you think?

Thank you,
Marie