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Showcase Of Music Night Clubs Web Designs
The time has come for the first showcase of music night club websites here on Smashing Magazine. We’ve scanned the Web up and down to find the most original and interesting online club identities. As usual, we have Flash websites and CSS eye candy. Please notice that the aim of the post was to showcase current web designs of music night clubs, so the gallery doesn’t necessarily showcase most usable or most beautiful night club web designs out there.
As we observed in the early Showcase of Fresh and Well-Designed Online Shops, the most obvious trend is the use of big bold pictures, either as backgrounds, headers or just side graphic elements thrown in the design mix. Most of them start playing music automatically (which is extremely annoying from the usability point of view), but in this case it’s not weird or off-putting because they are music club websites after all.
Another trend is the use of bright, vivid colors and intense color schemes, borrowed from the clubs themselves. Also, Flash clearly dominates in such web-sites, presenting some very unconventional navigation menus and very distinctive layouts that aren’t intuitive at all at the first glance.
Please feel free to use the comments area to suggest other club websites that you like.
[By the way, did you know there is a brand new Smashing Wordpress Book? Push WordPress past its limits!]
Showcase Of Music Night Club Web Designs
Anzu Club
Anzu radiates a great vibe that mixes fluid and electronic, with creative Flash and amazing usability.
Sass Vienna
A simple yet visually rich website, with great transparency and light.
Bar Music Hall
At first glance, this looks like a horizontal navigation-based website, but a closer look reveals that the only horizontal thing that moves is the header. A nice original way to keep it simple yet effective.
Lux Fragil
Ever wondered what kind of website Alice (of Wonderland) would want for her club? Pretty much one like this.
Matter London
A simple and effective design that uses the right colors.
T Bar London
Okay, this one is neither Flash nor the clean modern look, but it still looks classy without any fancy makeup. Just good old text (three columns) and images (one at a time).
Club Silo
Prepare yourself for this one. Enjoy a full 3-D experience, with a cube-like menu put right in the middle of the club.
Blondie Bar
This one is as cheap as it gets: static HTML with a flyer and embedded Tumblr blog. Not enough for a cool club? See for yourself.
Sugar Factory
Some black and yellow awesomeness, with a lot of AJAX and nice blog integration.
Sub Club
Minimal but definitely not simple, this one has the coolest menu in this entire showcase. Text at its best!
Macarena Club
Don’t be fooled by the Latino-nostalgic name, we have a good-looking and really compact website here. The best part: fantastic player integration.
Favela Chic
This one may be the only WordPress website in this roundup. A cool and efficient three-column theme. As visually random as the club itself.
Week End
What if we could reduce a club website to its core feature: the schedule? We’d end up with this simple and beautiful calendar from the Week End club in Berlin.
Cube Club
Very illustration-oriented, the Cube’s website must be the coolest entry by far for a CSS fan.
The Esplanade
Also known as Espy, the Esplanade Hotel is one of the coolest live music venues in Melbourne and has a mesmerizing Flash website, with strong black and white graphics and beautifully crafted animations. I really like the cloud pre-loader.
Michelberger
Part website, part zillion-instrument club website, this one is a Web illustration masterpiece. You can turn some knobs on the remote in the lower-right corner.
Trouw
A simple grungy blog website, with all the info you need stored in small post-like areas.
Paradiso
The audio player look and feel of this website is truly fantastic. Just zap around.
Dice Club
This one looks more like a fashion website than a club one because the header is huge and has nice photos of the staff.
Baalsaal
Another full-screen Flash-based website, with a beautiful illustration in the background.
Flex
This one has a practical, down-to-earth approach, but with some cool graphics as well. Highlights: the calendar-like design and grid-based multimedia archive.
Beta Nightclub
The Apple Computer of club websites. Glossy and stylish, with a great navigation system.
Watt Rotterdam
Why didn’t I think of that? A full-width header that scrolls like a carousel makes this website look slick!
Residenz Lounge
Cool flashy menu, and a good overall experience.
Barraca
Amazingly seamless integration of large images and small widgets: audio player, live news feed, dynamic agenda, podcast and social media shortcuts.
Pacha Global
Amazing Flash, with a dynamic menu and other interactive goodies.
Byblos
What’s better for a club website than moving eye candy at full screen? Great execution and creative design.
Le General
Nice communist propaganda design for Le General. You know why red is the color of choice!
Smart Bar
Practically a one-page website, with buttons only for extra info, the Smart Bar website sports a few digital sticky notes with a very a fresh look.
Club Disco
Another Flash production, this time in glossy-Matrix fashion.
Bourbon Street
Great transparency and fake pop-up windows on this colorful Brazilian website.
Ministry of Sound
The legendary MoS club has a slick website with a glossy but clean look.
We Love Music
Great color scheme and some goofy illustration make for a simple but pleasant virtual trip to Ibiza.
Brica Bar
Here we have cool Reservoir Dogs-like characters for menu items. The colored bubbles in the back are a great choice for this.
Bonus: Awdio
Not really a club, but one of the biggest club-related achievements of the last years, Awdio is a jukebox that plays live music from the best clubs in the world. The layout is built around a Flash-based player that features various “stations” (live music venues).
(al)
Catalin Zorzini is a design blogger with a social media background. You can read his daily writing at Inspired Magazine and connect with him on Twitter.
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September 13th, 2009 1:54 amOh dear, some of those website are pretty bad.
Spash pages, flash navigation, iframes?
It’s cool to see how different all of them are though. I love the design of cubeclub-chemnitz.de - 3September 13th, 2009 2:19 am
Cool selection.
- 4September 13th, 2009 2:19 am
Have never really ventured into this part of the web before. Interesting results.
- 5September 13th, 2009 2:49 am
Great post, I was just looking for music webdesigns for my new website about free music. Thanks!
- 6September 13th, 2009 2:58 am
Sorry to say but only two of them are good designed :[
- 7September 13th, 2009 3:06 am
some styles are a little doubtful. It’s a very controversial list.
- 8September 13th, 2009 4:06 am
cool :) there are loads of more examples ofc as clubs around the world seem to be more careful then other entities in relation to it’s online presences. thx.
- 9September 13th, 2009 4:12 am
It’s cool to see those. A lot of those site are pretty poor in terms of the techniques, like mentioned by Marlou – but it also reminds us of something that has imho gotten lost in the last years of the blog-era and that is, i think, way more present in music-related websites (clubs, festivals, bands):
a lot of people still don’t really care about accessibility & good practices, but want a website to be some kind of entertaining experience no matter how much flash & splashes they are going to encounter. This is still very dominant in websites that don’t really need to produce a lot of traffic, but rather represent someone already widely or locally known.A lot of those designs would be unthinkable for a magazine or a company site, but they do just fine for a local night club.
Also cool to see Vienna’s Flex website up there, this one is really well done!
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- 11September 13th, 2009 4:49 am
cube club rulez!
- 12September 13th, 2009 6:14 am
i’m glad to see this because this leads me to a question:
i’m really interested in portfolio designs for audio professionals, being a musician myself, I was wondering if there are any plans to put up a list of good practices for a portfolio that is based around audio? - 13September 13th, 2009 6:35 am
Lately most of smahingmagazine’s articles suck. They really suck. Look at this article fgs.
You can create this in 15 minutes - 14September 13th, 2009 7:18 am
I agree with Marlou, some of these sites are bad. The T Bar site drives me crazy with their links that look like text and text that look like links. The week-end-berlin is my fave, purely because it gets the point across without doing anything silly.
- 15September 13th, 2009 7:53 am
Huge resource, keep it up Smashing!
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- 17September 13th, 2009 7:57 am
You may want to add this one to the list. http://www.asylumafterhours.com Its a late night club in hawaii. I designed and produced the entire project. Enjoy. It was built using WordPress, no flash, lots of JQuery.
- 18September 13th, 2009 7:57 am
bah.. only 2 of those are well designed. BAD LIST!
But good effort anyway!
- 19September 13th, 2009 8:04 am
Some of them are very cool.
- 20September 13th, 2009 9:10 am
Wow, time to re-design. Those are horrible.
- 21September 13th, 2009 9:40 am
If anything, this gives designers a hint of where to go looking for work… most of these need to be redesigned.
- 22September 13th, 2009 10:47 am
lol @ the ‘bad design’ comments.
Clubbing isn’t about standards, or convention or ‘keeping it nice and tidy’ it’s about fun, flair and extravagance.
Flash navigation? Splash screens? Bring it on. The more visually outrageous it is the better. Think about the intended market these sites are designed for.
Have to say that I think you guys have been looking at it from a designers perspective and not the end users perspective.
@jon: it took me far less time to figure out the convention on the tbar website than the weekend berlin site. tbar: links are in bold and not underlined. weekend berlin: links are underlined but, uhm, so are some ‘non links’ – there’s no distinction.
I expect to be slated for having the audacity to state that I like these sites, but just remember, before launching a scathing attack, that I am the target market for these sites.
- 23September 13th, 2009 10:51 am
…actually, I stand corrected – not all the links on the tbar website are in bold.
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- 26September 13th, 2009 12:45 pm
Having reviewed these sites I think the using word ‘Showcase’ in the title of this article is misleading…
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- 30September 13th, 2009 6:16 pm
Byblos is awesome, I really love that full screen video background in websites…is there any good tuts on how to do that? i seen some cool paper vision stuff, but christ thats rather confusing…@ smashing mag, could you guys do a feature on that? it seems to be a really cool technique…or perhaps some one could let me know where to go to find something…that would be awesome ! great post !!
- 31September 13th, 2009 7:25 pm
Too busy! You may think it’s eye candy but it’s the kind you can get for free from the creepy guy in a van down by the park watching little kids :o !!!!!
- 32September 13th, 2009 7:38 pm
Yeah… most of those need some serious help! All club sites usually suck!
- 33September 13th, 2009 10:13 pm
Some Good, Some bad .. remaining Ugly..
- 34September 13th, 2009 10:42 pm
At least 50% of this sites are ugly.
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- 37September 13th, 2009 11:47 pm
what about cocoonclub guys? :) http://www.cocoonclub.net/main/en_swf.jsp
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- 39September 13th, 2009 11:49 pm
There are some amazing clubs in Manchester. With equally cool websites:
Sankeys – http://www.sankeys.info/
The Warehouse Project – http://www.thewarehouseproject.com/
- 40September 14th, 2009 12:26 am
Can anyone tell me how to create a background like the first webpage: Anzu Club?
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- 42September 14th, 2009 12:52 am
@EDi It was very inspiring, thanks
- 43September 14th, 2009 2:04 am
If there was an award for least usable sites they’d win the award. Visual clutter, random background images mixed with text/navigation placed at seemingly random places make for I can image is a terrible user experience. I wouldn’t want to try to find useful information on these sites.
- 44September 14th, 2009 3:18 am
Sure these sights look good, BUT WHY THE RELIANCE ON FLASH FOR NAVIGATION? HOW THE FLYING FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO LINK A FRIEND TO A CERTAIN EVENT?
It makes me mad. >:[
- 45September 14th, 2009 3:22 am
and what about Space ibiza ?
http://www.space-ibiza.es i think this website must be listed tooChees
- 46September 14th, 2009 4:32 am
Hi, I working in this webproject for a brazilian site: http://www.deputamadreclub.com. Enjoy!
: D
- 47September 14th, 2009 4:46 am
I Tweetted the Anzu Club site :)
Nice collection!
twitter.com/vinnidp - 48September 14th, 2009 5:15 am
Nice list. I really hate paradiso.nl thought. Why use flash, if I wanna know what is scheduled for tonight, I don’t feel like waiting a minute before all kinds of flashy loading sequences have been loaded.
- 49September 14th, 2009 5:23 am
another great club website I thought should make the list http://www.dragonflynightclub.com/
- 50September 14th, 2009 9:17 am
These designs have always been (to me):
1) The most obnoxious of all print design.
2) A great excuse to use over the top lens flares and other effects (like Trapcode Shine etc.) that would get me fired from my news job.
3) One of the HIGHEST PAYING and MOST COMMON freelance projects I get on a week to week basis.
Anyone that thinks they can do better than what clubs already have (starting designers etc.) need only grab a handful from various clubs, do them better, then go back and make your offer. You would be surprised who they get to do them and how much they pay for them.
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- 52September 15th, 2009 1:34 am
Some great examples of bad design in here, well found.
- 53September 15th, 2009 9:21 am
Wow a lot of these looked much better in the screen caps than in the actual site. Many were cluttered and hapahazard. Each had good aspects, but overall many were terrible.
- 54September 15th, 2009 10:41 am
I live in Brazil near the Anzu (#1) and that club is really amazing like the website!
You need to know!! - 55September 15th, 2009 12:00 pm
Southern german nightclub Creme21 with their recently redesigned new website Creme21 – Der Club | Die Partylocation in Heilbronn mit House, Electro, Soul und Hip-hop
- 56September 15th, 2009 11:00 pm
Thank you guys! This list is great as I’m just working on something really similar and this give me a lot of inspiration!
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- 58September 17th, 2009 12:20 am
Here are 2 club websites that don’t rely on flash:
- Bed Supperclub http://www.bedsupperclub.com
- SOUND Phuket http://www.soundphuket.com - 59September 17th, 2009 7:42 am
I’m missing http://www.versuz.be/, one of Belgian’s best export products! ;)
- 60September 18th, 2009 3:50 am
nice collection, one more pure with nice navigation… http://www.leclubsantaeulalia.com
- 61September 20th, 2009 2:49 pm
Don’t forget the legendary Berghain Club in Berlin, which was voted the best club by DJ Mag and Resident Advisor.
- 62September 22nd, 2009 2:03 pm
WOW… Really a lot of haters out there. Probably stuck in a going-no-where design job where you can’t have fun and create something different…. where are the positive people in the world. Oh yeah, you aren’t featured in here so you need to complain. Nice job.
- 63September 23rd, 2009 6:57 am
Lot of mentioned clubs are available LIVE on Awdio.com.
Spread the word ;-) - 64September 24th, 2009 2:03 am
some really good stuff out there.
as for the people who say they need re-designed, get a grip..!
- 65September 28th, 2009 1:20 pm
Look at this nice Night Club Web Design to:
http://www.republicademadras.com.br/- 66December 11th, 2009 7:41 am
Very nicely done site, I really like the flow of it and color combination.
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- 67December 11th, 2009 7:40 am
Nice collection, thank you for sharing.
Check this one out also: http://www.glowchi.com
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I swear to god I was at the sass club vienna last saturday :D