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40 Excellent Illustrations In Web Designs
In website design, there are an endless amount of possibilities, styles and techniques that can be used to make a beautiful design that flows with the content. One of these styles is an illustration-heavy layout, which can take a website to a whole new level. Illustrations are becoming more and more popular, and some designers are really pushing the limits with some beautiful ones.
Below you’ll find 40 designs that feature skillful and beautiful illustrations, integrated properly to create a visually pleasing style.
Also consider our previous articles:
- Web Design Trends 2009
A review of trends and popular design elements for 2009. - Retro and Vintage in Modern Web Design
- 50 Beautiful And Creative Portfolio Designs
- Textures in Modern Web Design
A great showcase of websites that have unique and creative textures. - 50 Beautiful Blog Designs
Beautiful Illustrations In Web Designs
DivVoted
An all-around beautiful layout, with some beautifully colored illustrations to accompany it.
The Alamo Basement
A nice, colorful illustration that has a comforting air.
StrawPoll
StrawPoll has a beautifully illustrated landscape, with an extremely clever layout.
Green Globe Ideas
A high-quality and very creative illustration in the header.
old loft
A very nicely illustrated layout, with good coloring and contrast.
Pixele
Pixele has a colorful and rather funky header that works well with the rest of the website.
Radu Ceuca
Another very colorful and grungy layout, with a painted effect.
ten24 Media
A beautiful yet simple illustration that looks excellent against the brown background.
Silverback
A very skillful and detailed illustration on a nice green layout.
Banjax
A simple but powerful illustration in the header, amidst a minimalist layout.
Neweracaptalk
A unique, flowing illustration that doesn’t detract from the content.
Dean Oakley
This is a great portfolio with a very creative horizontal layout. The illustration looks very nice with the layout.
K4 Laboratory
A very colorful illustration mixed with interesting moving Flash objects and some cool effects.
Visit Cascadia
A very detailed header background illustration.
Galan
A beautiful and brightly colored portfolio, with nice hand-drawn illustrations.
Branded07
A very clean website with some blue minimalist illustrations and really cool penguins.
WP Coder
A very clever design with a nice, detailed, semi-realistic illustrated machine.
Africa Tour 2008
An excellent mixture of grunge and clean styling.
45royale Inc.
Another elegant header design that looks great with the clean layout of the rest of the website.
Fatburgr
A few skillful illustrations in a very cool overall layout.
Drink ZZZ
This Flash website uses grungy illustrations and smart Flash effects to create a fun user experience.
Ali Felski
Another website with grungy textures and fancy colors.
DrupalCon DC
A colorful background graphic with a unique style.
LightCMS
The LightCMS website is known for its awesome coloring, textures and graphics.
Sourcebits TangledDecals
A very beautiful website, with colorful illustrations across the background, great type and grungy graphics.
GoMediaZine
A nicely detailed and colorful illustration the doesn’t detract from the content. This is also a good example of how colorful shapes can be mixed with black and white graphics.
STUDIO7DESIGNS
One more very popular website, because of the breathtaking background illustration.
Phizz
A mainly black and white illustration mixed into a colorful website.
answerJam
A very colorful minimalist website with simple shapes for illustrations.
Adit Shukla
A cool illustration that uses many different shapes but not too many colors, thus achieving a perfect balance.
Iceberg
Nice shapes and beautiful blue colors create a flowing design.
Marchand de Trucs
A quite stunning and extremely realistic illustration.
Erguvan Platin Evlri
A stylish watercolor background and a realistic illustration with interactive features.
Starbucks
Hand-drawn and illustrated graphics in a beautiful Flash-based layout.
Viget Extend
A colorful and creative header illustration.
Vimeo
A few simple graphics on a peaceful blue background.
Go Glamping
A cool layout with distinctive shapes and good color scheme.
Twither
Subtle cloud illustrations on a nice layout, with a great landscape illustration in the footer.
IL FRUTTETO
Simple shapes, great colors and gradients combine to make a completely illustrated website.
Umbrella Today?
Very realistic and detailed graphics with a great background design.
Further Resources
You may be interested in checking out these further articles and related resources:
- Web Design: Illustration
An inspirational resource full of illustrated websites; worth checking out.
(al)
Matt Cronin is an avid graphic designer, web designer/developer, Cocoa programmer, photographer, digital artist, and the like. He also enjoys writing, and does quite a bit of writing for Smashing Magazine. He is currently working on a startup called VAEOU, which will have new services coming soon.
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- 1
- 2February 19th, 2009 3:42 pm
Some of this stuff seems recycled from other SM articles, but I like that Alamo Basement Illustration.
- 3February 19th, 2009 3:57 pm
A very inspiring list as always. Thank you for listing WPCoder, I really enjoyed working with WPCandy on that project.
- 4February 19th, 2009 4:29 pm
What’s up with the ugly, aliased Windows font rendering in all your screenshots? It really takes a way from a lot of the cool designs you post.
- 5February 19th, 2009 4:37 pm
Excellent examples. Thanks for the inspiring roundup :)
- 6February 19th, 2009 4:42 pm
I hate being “that guy” who points out something left off the list but the little illustration on http://ushahidi.com/ is quite nice.
- 7February 19th, 2009 4:52 pm
very inspiring illustrations.
- 8February 19th, 2009 5:04 pm
an inspiring list. i’ve always liked vimeo’s. and now i’m a fan of twither (those moving clouds rock)(and did you notice you can’t right click on them – does that mean they are not flash?) and dean oakley.
- 9February 19th, 2009 5:05 pm
Those are puffins, not penguins on Rob Palmer’s site ;)
Otherwise, very nice piece and rather inspirational designs :) - 10February 19th, 2009 5:11 pm
I love cartoons and I like this kind of illustration. My daughter and son love it too. Technically I know how to do it but to come up with a creative idea, I’m blank at this point. I’m a System guy but I like creative things.
- 11February 19th, 2009 5:17 pm
@ sergi
Twither does in fact use an embed flash object to create the cloud movement.
@ Jonners
Sorry, I’m a designer not a zoologist! I wouldn’t know the difference :)
- 12February 19th, 2009 5:23 pm
MacHeist web site is always gorgeous – graphic wise.
- 13February 19th, 2009 5:28 pm
I love this article.
- 14February 19th, 2009 5:59 pm
so apparently you have to illustrate in vector to be “excellent”
- 15February 19th, 2009 6:28 pm
I like those
- 16February 19th, 2009 6:30 pm
Wanna know a secret? Go to the Silverback site and resize the window horizontally. You’ll see the vines move in perspective.
- 17February 19th, 2009 7:08 pm
What a wonderful selection, and great source of inspiration :D
Take care guys! - 18February 19th, 2009 7:24 pm
I dunno, speaking as an illustrator I have really mixed feelings about this post. On one hand, it’s awesome to see illustration get some recognition, especially as used in web design where it’s not as commonly seen. On the other hand, the similarity in style here is depressing. I know vector illustration is the big thing with web 2.0 style, but after a while it all starts to look the same to me. There are a few examples that don’t fit the norm, but overall there’s a lot of sameness here. Throwing a texture on a vector illustration may make it a bit grunge, but it doesn’t make it look natural. Some different styles would be awesome to see, and if there not out there, well… maybe they should be.
- 19February 19th, 2009 10:05 pm
Really rich websites being showcased here. Extremely mesmerising and informative. Thumbs up for the listing!
- 20February 20th, 2009 12:18 am
Nice examples
- 21February 20th, 2009 12:21 am
Thanks for the feature guys! :)
- 22February 20th, 2009 12:45 am
So inspiring!
- 23February 20th, 2009 1:03 am
As great as many of these designs are I can’t shake off the feeling that they are designing “learn how to read”-books for children and not a-ok sites adults. It’s like the dreaded kindergarten-like Windows XP’s theme all over again. It’s so cute and cuddly and childish in all the wrong ways, like Vimeo, Twither (lol title), IL FRUTTETO, old loft and many others.
Design needs to grow up here IMHO.
Radu Ceuca on the other hand, manages to avoid this and still stay fresh. Look at what he is doing if you want inspiration from this article. :3
- 24February 20th, 2009 1:11 am
sorry guys I’m a big fan of SM but almost all of these webiste already featured on your website…….. maybe it’s time to find some new websites
- 25February 20th, 2009 1:20 am
I love this stuff , thanks :)
- 26February 20th, 2009 1:28 am
Just for future reference, the cool “penguins” in the design for Branded07 are actually puffins.
Close, but no cigar…
- 27February 20th, 2009 1:40 am
Arghhhh, why I’m not talented enough to create such beautiful stuff! Anyway, like it!
- 28February 20th, 2009 1:56 am
Poor & recycled
- 29February 20th, 2009 2:00 am
Why most of your articles keep repeating same designs?
- 30February 20th, 2009 2:05 am
Alok Jain:
Because it’s colonthree-time! :3
- 31February 20th, 2009 2:49 am
All those illustrations can make any website really nice and creative, wonderful collection!
- 32February 20th, 2009 4:47 am
Beautiful, just beautiful
- 33February 20th, 2009 4:53 am
Hey, thanks for featuring our work (NewEraCapTalk)! Greetings from e1k!
- 34February 20th, 2009 6:05 am
Many of these won’t have universal appeal, especially of you’re already a designer or illustrator, but that’s more a matter of personal taste than anything.
You may want to reconsider the compulsion to write a caption for every sample included as it may not be necessary to explain what’s probably quite obvious to the viewer already. Let the visuals speak for themselves.
- 35February 20th, 2009 6:53 am
I’d love to use some images like these for my website.
Is there a place with ready-made ones available (preferably free :D)?
Alternatively, are there any decent tutorials for creating images like that? I can create a simple web design but I wouldn’t know where to start with something like that without doing some tutorials first. - 36February 20th, 2009 7:13 am
Nice list! I especially like the sheep wearing a rocket pack…
- 37February 20th, 2009 7:24 am
Gooooooood! design!
- 38February 20th, 2009 8:50 am
Props to the few sites listed here that actually allowed their illustrations to determine the layout of the site. All too often these days, everything is web 2.0 CMS, with graphics thrown in and around a template or theme.
- 39February 20th, 2009 9:01 am
I can’t help myself:
A very clean website with some blue minimalist illustrations and really cool penguins.
They aren’t penguins but are called Pufins, just so you know… - 40February 20th, 2009 9:34 am
Wow! Some really amazing illustrations – just wish I had the time to something like this in my work!
- 41February 20th, 2009 9:57 am
Great post, and many really beautiful sites. Well done.
One small point of fact – I think that the “really cool penguins”… are actually puffins. :-)
- 42February 20th, 2009 10:58 am
To echo another poster: -> so excellent illustration means a lot of vector-ish web 2.0 Illustrations?
Is there any other style out there? Same thing with the grunge… the grunge pages are like web 2.0’s gothic twin sister…
Yawn!
- 43February 20th, 2009 11:21 am
NOT PENGuIN, PUFFIn
- 44February 20th, 2009 1:23 pm
Ron Evans: “grunge pages are like web 2.0’s gothic twin sister…”
Quote of the Year…. lol
- 45February 20th, 2009 1:38 pm
“Let the visuals speak for themselves.”
THIS.
/thread
- 46February 20th, 2009 5:55 pm
Thanks for giving the Go Mediazine a shout in this list. Very greatful!
- 47February 21st, 2009 5:45 pm
I love Smashing Magazine. I need a Smashing Magazine t-shirt.
- 48February 21st, 2009 7:19 pm
Good to see DivVoted at the top. Have always loved that site!
- 49February 22nd, 2009 4:16 am
Great post…!
- 50February 22nd, 2009 9:29 pm
Kool illustrations here’s one more http://www.boo-r-woo.com inspired from vimeo
- 51February 22nd, 2009 11:38 pm
I personally love Nick La’s n design studio… Great phoenix illustration at the top… You have to check it out…
- 52February 23rd, 2009 2:50 am
Can it be that u always show the same sites? i mean they are good, but they are also well known. Look for some new stuff :)
- 53February 23rd, 2009 6:45 am
Most of these are really cool illustrations, but don’t take advantage of the animation or interactive possibilities of the medium. Here’s a couple sites with cool illustrations that are more dynamic:
http://www.thinkbrighthouse.com
http://www.sweetwaterbrew.com
http://www.mcbd.co.uk/The first two were designed by Toolbox9. The third was designed by MCBD
- 54February 24th, 2009 8:14 am
Thank you for the add guys!
- 55February 24th, 2009 9:33 am
I really love most of them but K4 Laboratory impressed me
- 56February 24th, 2009 4:37 pm
this is a complete package for a startup,but i also want to say apart of this web designing, developers should explore a software called Adobe AIR,which will turn out to be boon for developers.
- 57February 25th, 2009 2:55 am
There are some fantastic sites here, really inspirational.
I love seeing illustrations used in websites, think they bring a lovely texture and feel to the screen.
Particularly like the Starbucks site, very nice flash interface with a good use of sound.
Adit Shukla’s landscape is pretty sweet too…
Keep up the good work! - 58February 25th, 2009 12:39 pm
very beautiful collection. some of them at least :)
check out http://myft.net, a page designed as a book with a lot of illustration!
- 59February 25th, 2009 12:51 pm
Great Post
I love viewing what others are up to. - 60February 25th, 2009 10:32 pm
Nice, its inspiring, cause lately i am using illustrations in my web design. even my own website has , you can wiew if you want!!
- 61February 26th, 2009 1:06 am
very beautiful collection.
- 62February 26th, 2009 8:06 am
Great post. I personally like how Vimeo is designed, simple and clean.
- 63February 28th, 2009 2:25 am
Nice illustrations. What I like the most is the K4 Laboratory. It is really eye catching. I hope one day I will be able to create such beautiful and catchy header for my own blog.
- 64March 2nd, 2009 2:41 pm
Nice list!!
- 65March 5th, 2009 12:42 pm
Bullshit. No one is W3C valid.
- 66April 28th, 2009 7:56 pm
Nice list. I really like Marchand de Trucs.
How about one more? Kinetic Shadows - 67
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Nice one…. I personally a big fan of using Illustrations into modern designs. Although it’s not to easy to create these type of Illustrations in general but it all depends upon the priority level.
Thanks Matt for this selection.
DKumar M.