60 Elegant and Visually Appealing Designs
It’s quite easy to get stuck in creativity blocks, but it’s damn hard to get out of them. Particularly if you are out of time and don’t want to compromise your professional principles selecting the first “quick-n-dirty” solution you can think of. To get things done, you need inspiration and creative thinking. You need fresh ideas and elegant approaches. And you need to be able to find them as quick as it is possible. Handy references and examples are therefore both useful and enjoyable – after all, who can resist gorgeous, professional, elegant and visually appealing designs?
We’ve selected some of them. In an overview below you’ll find 60 fresh, elegant, professional and visually appealing designs, which pay close attention to details and manage to remain simple, user-friendly and nice-looking.
You might be interested in taking a look at design showcases we’ve published before:
- Keep It Simple, Stupid – Showcase Of Simple And Clean Designs
- 50 Beautiful CSS-Based Designs in 2006
- 45 Fresh, Clean and Impressive Designs
- 30 Dark Designs
- 11 Almost Perfect Business Layouts
Please feel free to comment upon the selected designs: nothing is more important to us than constructive criticism from your side.
Elegant Designs
1. Tomáš Ledba _ grafický design _ web design _ corporate identity
2. Intype
3. BigFilebox
5. FluidBook
6. Panic – Coda – One-Window Web Development for Mac OS X
7. boo-box, as simple as that…
9. Freshview – Refreshingly Simple Software
13. StyleSpion
14. Online Portfolio of Vijay S Nair
15. Svenigson™ – Yes, a Blog Kind of Thingy
16. Iconkits.com
17. The Big Noob
18. Cómete Mallorca
19. DNA 11 – From Life Comes Art.
20. smashLAB
21. Playground Blues
22. Design Workflows at Work: How Top Designers Work Their Magic
23. Idécollection – effektiva golv för din miljö
25. the Geniant blog
26. North x East
Selected Designs
27. blog.critical | Andy Pearson
28. Chris Shiflett: PHP and Web Application Security
29. inspired web – affordable web design, marketing and hosting on the gold coast australia
30. Nitram+Nunca
31. unFortunate – Cookies Not Included.
32. 3daysafter — Journal of Rian Triharyana
33. Krabi & Mask
34. OkapiStudio
35. Reise-Community globalzoo.de
37. Immo Varro vastgoedmakelaar
38. Webdesign, Usability, Grafik und Design – Kai Müller
40. Breeze
41. The TLC
42. Jogger.pl – bloguj przez Jabbera
43. Global Moxie :: The Hypertext Laboratory of Josh Clark
44. Quo Consulting
45. mezzoblue
46. Mala krcma Skalinada | Volosko
47. Period Three
48. Express4J – The Lightweight & Flexible UI Framework
49. Tony2Nice – Once ate dog food to see how crunchy it was (hint: very)
50. Spouse Notes – Submitted by Apollo Loose
51. elixir graphics | professional rapidweaver themes
52. ErgonoMind
53. Nathan Carnes – Bellingham, WA Website Development and Graphic Design
54. nclud | Our Work
55. EUtelNet :: Web design and development ::
56. Welcome to Buzz — Buzz Recruitment
57. None-Design Media | Webdesign Recklinghausen
Flash
60. Merten Snijders, Mhq Interactive 2007.
Matt
May 21st, 2007 9:15 pmStunning list!
I adore the minimal approach to design evident in some of these sites.
Dmytro Shteflyuk
May 21st, 2007 9:16 pmThat’s great! Thank you so much for your amazing job!
I really love solution with menu in 60, lightness of the first, style of 51, woman on 16 :-), and just great design 28.
rtriharyana
May 21st, 2007 9:21 pmWohooo… thanks for including my site :)
yudith
May 21st, 2007 9:30 pmgreat list!! as always
ElvisCai
May 21st, 2007 9:38 pmis so beautiful~~@@
MorPhaGo
May 21st, 2007 9:42 pmVery nice compilation. Love smashingmagazine! Keep the good job.
anty
May 21st, 2007 10:10 pmSome of the designs don’t match my taste. Number 44 for example, the brown design of Quo Consulting has neither a good color, nor do I like the color-in-color approach.
On the other hand, other designs listed here are stunning.
Thanks for this list!
David Horn
May 21st, 2007 10:16 pmNice list – thank you. Have really enjoyed this blog since finding it last year – keep up the great work!
David
Kai Müller
May 21st, 2007 10:38 pmThank you for including not only one, but two of my sites.
Famous Photos
May 21st, 2007 11:20 pmmore quality then last time! last is my favorite …
Dashifen
May 21st, 2007 11:24 pm@andy: Interesting; the brown-on-brown Quo site was one of my favorites. One man’s junk and all that. Now I just wish anything I tried to put together looked like these!
Paweł Kata (Oszczędzanie pieniędzy)
May 22nd, 2007 12:01 amWow! Polish Jogger is on the list! Way to go! :-D
Patrick Haney
May 22nd, 2007 12:03 amThere are some pretty good pieces of work listed here, many of which I’ve come across already. It’s pretty amazing what people are doing with design and CSS on the web these days.
One note, your screenshot of Elixir didn’t quite finish loading it seems (the middle image is not complete).
Lee
May 22nd, 2007 12:05 amA good list, but you forgot one: http://www.bmindful.com/
quake
May 22nd, 2007 12:06 am57. Nonedesign is a semi-blatant copy of http://www.astheria.com :/
Tom Smalling
May 22nd, 2007 12:50 amGreat list, I really love some of the minimalist designs you have listed. Thanks for all the work!
Pizzadude
May 22nd, 2007 12:51 amAwesome list!
And Jogger! Congratulations to Rid. ^^
Lanooz
May 22nd, 2007 1:49 amAWesome list, awesome designs! ;)
And awesome Riddle and his Jogger.pl :D
Vijay Nair
May 22nd, 2007 2:14 amThanks for including my site. I’m very excited
Jan
May 22nd, 2007 3:04 amThank you for the great overview. There are some great designs. A fresh design that I also like is
bill
May 22nd, 2007 3:08 amI stopped paying attention after I saw that 7 out of the first 10 sites had that horrible Web 2.0-licious lime green color (or some variant of it) as a key element.
Seriously, why does every site these days have to use that? It’s painful.
Dan O'Shea
May 22nd, 2007 3:28 amThese are breathtaking. Well done!
DESIGN
May 22nd, 2007 3:35 amFantasic Article again, Dugg!
I love the new direction that people are taking, with the ability to design at 1000px there is so much more ‘pop!’ that people can do!
Great list!
eric
May 22nd, 2007 3:40 amhttp://www.feelbreeze.com/pricing is pretty close to http://campaignmonitor.com/pricing/ (especially the copy)
even the application screens look the same… is Campaign Monitor licensing their product now?
Daniel Anderson Tiecher
May 22nd, 2007 3:41 amMost of the sites listed in the articles are stunning and some of them are simply mind-blowing! I wish I have the skills needed to create sites like these. Guess I’ll have to stick with coding, eh?
Great article, BTW.
Carlos Magaña
May 22nd, 2007 4:00 amGreat! you are great looking good designs, I was needed some of inspiration, this was very usefull
Ben
May 22nd, 2007 4:07 amGreat post.
Dmytro Shteflyuk
May 22nd, 2007 4:35 am2bill: Because they look good. Very clean, simple and useful. This is just evolution.
lid
May 22nd, 2007 5:00 amNice list! Got really good picks
Jeremy
May 22nd, 2007 5:15 amWhat is not mentioned is that a fairly large number of these sites appear to have been built using the Apple “easy-peasy” web templates accompanying it’s very low-end iWeb web-page editor that ships for free with the Mac. So if this is good design, the folks at Apple should get the award for at least a third of these sites. :-)
Mike
May 22nd, 2007 5:19 amThis site is nothing but junk lists. Sure they have useful articles once in a while but all these lists are just useless and not journalism. I think they should rename this site BoringMagazine.
andrew
May 22nd, 2007 5:21 amSome very nice designs in there, glad to see more designers using white space in their designs.
Ken Randall
May 22nd, 2007 5:27 amEric: Breeze is using MailBuild, which is a reseller version of Campaign Monitor. No harm, no foul, they’re doing exactly what MailBuild encourages companies to do.
Ron S
May 22nd, 2007 5:54 amSuperb list! I can’t believe I haven’t seen some of these great designs before.
Jeff Woelker
May 22nd, 2007 6:05 amI’m noticing a theme here:
- large blocks of solid color
- repeating header bars of color
- tons of “dead” space around text and images
- cutesy iconography with gradient textures
I think that sums up the graphical style of Web 2.0
tzMedia
May 22nd, 2007 6:11 amNice selections all, I put a post in the SG forums, challenging the forum users to define how many are good enough for Stylegala. I think everyone’s just to busy to write up the reviews anymore.
Join the discussion there if you like:
http://forum.stylegala.com/about5324.html
Habitaquo
May 22nd, 2007 6:15 amSome very nice designs in there, glad to see more designers using white space in their designs. Thanks :)
Matty
May 22nd, 2007 6:16 amYou have out done yourselves again Smashing Magazine, thanks for the great list!
Ardilla
May 22nd, 2007 6:54 amDon’t forget that beauty is only screen-deep. To point out a few not-so-well-formed examples: #1 and #9 uses some span spacers. Hello, what’s the point of using CSS if there are going to be spacer elements? And both #1 and #2 uses strict XHTML but still serves it as faux-XHTML _AND_ uses an XML prolog (what’s the point?). Don’t try viewing source for #18, it is pure horror. #19 is a nice bowl of Dreamweaver tag soup; #20 is a lighter serving.
I strongly agree with Jeff’s comment here.
Web Contempo
May 22nd, 2007 7:57 amGreat post. Always helps to have inspriation when embarking on a new design, and there are definitely some top notch designs on this list. I’ve made this blog a regular read!
Jonathan Solichin
May 22nd, 2007 8:42 amWow! Great list, thanks for sharing! Definitely inspired.
Frank
May 22nd, 2007 9:53 amGreat list, thanks a lot !
Dark colors seem to be the bg color to go with at the moment – personally i wish there were more lighter color shemes out there.
Derrick Foo
May 22nd, 2007 11:27 amwow, looking at all these sites really inspires me to design! fantastic compilation of some of the coolest looking sites i’ve seen so far! :D
Mostafa Mourad
May 22nd, 2007 3:55 pmGREATTTTTT!!!
sd
May 22nd, 2007 4:04 pmgreat looking designs with all the modern and yet effective trends. thanks for the overview.
Somaninn
May 22nd, 2007 4:09 pmVery nice list ! A great source on inspiration.
djuro
May 22nd, 2007 5:31 pmYour selected sites are a holiday for my eyes!
Especially glad to see #46 – a Croatian site!
Where in the web heavens did you find it?
Keep smashing!
Nypo:creative
May 22nd, 2007 7:16 pmGreat list as always. Some of these aren’t my taste but can see why they might be liked. Keep up the good work
jazzle
May 22nd, 2007 7:38 pm60?! that’s just excessive. could you not whittle it down?
johno
May 22nd, 2007 7:49 pmSpeechless! Some wonderful examples – real gems. Love Fluid Book and Svenigson. Thanks for putting this list together – what an inspiration!
Jennifer Farley
May 22nd, 2007 7:51 pmGenuinely Inspirational, thanks!
Sanchit
May 22nd, 2007 7:52 pmEvery site is cool… The navigation of last site #60 is SLICK..
Maja
May 22nd, 2007 10:47 pmThanks for including one my site! :)
Nurul Amin Russel
May 22nd, 2007 10:54 pmwow! really beautiful…
Ken Pendergast
May 23rd, 2007 12:06 amI really like the simplicity of Web 2.0 designs. the down side is the lack of complete creativity. However some did show more then just whitespace and gradients.
Stas
May 23rd, 2007 12:35 amCool!
I found a CV in the list.
How do you think, my CV is elegant too or not?
Xin
May 23rd, 2007 1:42 amawsome list however a couple sites is off in IE6
Peer Wandiger
May 23rd, 2007 2:21 amNice list. Some of the design are truly stunning. Thanks for it.
Jeff
May 23rd, 2007 3:37 amWow big suprise they ALL look the same!! Kind of like eating the same thing for lunch each day.
Reyner
May 23rd, 2007 4:53 amSmashlab use the same style that apple uses in his sites.. so splendid
sorry guys…
Respiro the logo design guy
May 22nd, 2007 3:40 pmGreat list!
Nur Ahmad Furlong
May 23rd, 2007 5:12 pmThe designs are indeed beautiful in their own way though as some have said very similar in nature, style and even content to a certain degree. While I personally still like the style of using soft features, rounded edges, subtle gradients and the like it would be nice to see something not so common. For example when I first saw the electric pulp site I thought, hey, that’s beautiful, but different.
Johannes
May 23rd, 2007 1:45 amwhere is bartelme.at?
Impressive list, though.
Chris
May 23rd, 2007 8:23 pmThis time you’ve really spoilt us! Thanks
Mads
May 24th, 2007 12:14 am@Jeff Woelker
I don’t agree with you that there’s a “web 2.0″ style. It’s just whats fashionable right now, and it will eventually change independently from “web 2.0″ (what ever that is).
Ben Hunt
May 23rd, 2007 8:21 pmWhat about webdesignfromscratch also?
mike
May 24th, 2007 1:34 pmhey smash look whats hot on del.icio.us right now…. hahaha
http://tutorialblog.org/30-great-website-designs-part2/
looks VERY similar.. don’t you think?? the dirty dirty bastards..
Blnd650
May 27th, 2007 8:29 amOn site #10, revyver.com, the author calls himself “an award-winning designer and blogger with a knack for business” and says that he wants to “provide compelling and unique design that ultimately helps your bottom line”. He then proceeds to tell the reader that if they are using IE to view his site, then they have come to the wrong place.
Is he kidding?
web 2.0 is a joke
May 31st, 2007 11:53 amLiterally all these designs are similar. “Web2.0″ IS A JOKE. It’s just a style/hype/fashion that eventually every designer will start doing and will become a norm in no time.
Blah..
11amdesign.com
May 31st, 2007 11:18 pmNice collection of websites and some have good logos.
Goulven
June 1st, 2007 2:42 amAwesome list once again. Thanks a lot guys!
Lisa
June 2nd, 2007 9:16 amAbsolutely inspiring. Thanks for the list.
Chris Leeman
June 2nd, 2007 2:12 pmGreat list. The only problem I had with it was Bistrian Iosip’s blog (http://blog.bistrianiosip.com). If you read a few paragraph’s of Bistrian’s blog, it sounds like it was written by a 10 year old… not a good thing for a blog. I know these sites are being listed for their visual appeal, but if attention to detail was also listed as one of the criteria, and that should include grammar.
Fernando
June 8th, 2007 8:09 amPlayground Blues is beautiful, the rest is boring.
Ray Cheung
June 14th, 2007 5:10 pmNice one. Thanks
Digital Street
June 19th, 2007 5:51 pmNice site with good logos!
Inspiring :)
Derek Harvey
July 1st, 2007 3:14 amInteresting.
Thank you for sharing
Franklin de Leon
July 3rd, 2007 4:05 amReally inspiring
Randall
July 11th, 2007 11:15 pmStarting with webdesign its alot of help,really (times infinity)great sites,thanks…
Palak
October 2nd, 2007 11:58 pmWOW!!! the designs are amazing…
Nicolaas
October 7th, 2007 7:35 amYou guys have the best damn content i’ve come across for a long time.
Sally
October 19th, 2007 1:23 amThanks for your post. I like OUTLINE to DESIGN (№36) very much. It’s the best website design I’ve ever seen.
Sebastian
October 29th, 2007 6:46 pmHi there!
A wonderful list of themes with an increadibly big serviceableness.
Anton
November 23rd, 2007 4:09 pmCool post. I always have only good emotions
Karan Goyal
December 1st, 2007 3:24 pmThe #60 design is just awesome, brand new idea. #41, something similar we used for a project a couple years back, but is much better then mine. Great Collection. Thanks.
Marvin
January 3rd, 2008 2:18 amI like nr 17 best!
Anthony Armendariz
January 18th, 2008 12:57 pmWhile 1-4 of these are really unique, all the others, while attractive, also seem expected and cliche.
ajith gopal
January 19th, 2008 10:12 pmits really superb and great study material…
Gabriel
February 23rd, 2008 7:10 amThis is the best site I have ever found for design inspiration. I you know better please send a link.
Gabriel
February 23rd, 2008 7:12 amBest site ever for inspiration. A picture is still worth a thousand words!
Jonathan Tick
March 4th, 2008 8:18 amThis is a really nice list of websites! Great design, great inspiration!
Best Regards,
Jonathan
Damola
March 4th, 2008 9:34 amThese sites really fit the word elegant. Highly conceptual and inspirational.
Damola
Ashish Lohorung Rai
March 23rd, 2008 11:38 pmReally cool link..I love it..ples post more…
vikranth k
April 12th, 2008 12:44 amI like very much. My creativity will increase on seeing your website.
Thank a lot.
Finally I hope you must update more design especially floral motive design also
San V
May 21st, 2008 10:57 amThese are excellent sites with several unique and highly creative concepts and designs I had not thought of…very inspiring. My favs were 17, 22, and 36. Thanks!
Nancy
July 29th, 2008 12:04 amYa I agree with your article because you say right web designer have a creative mind they design the sites with their good ideas.
edward
September 28th, 2008 4:05 pmGreat list.
Can I have a bigger screenshot of that smashlab page of last year (solid-and-serious-designs-20). That looks really awsome.
They have changed their page design this year.
Keep putting up and we ll keep looking up.
Jorge
September 30th, 2008 9:54 pmit like me, simple styles.
make a layout
November 19th, 2008 3:22 pmok i am officially inspired! my fav is freelance switch…. wonder if those illustrations are from istock??
Solexy
March 21st, 2009 11:02 pmthx,
fine list