Today, we’ll be covering a few unlikely sources of inspiration that can help you bolster your design ideas. These don’t include the super obvious choices like Awwwards or Best Website Gallery. Instead, these inspiring sources delve into less top-of-mind places and offer creative fuel in less conventional ways.

Enjoy!

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Children’s Books

Believe it or not, children’s books can be a great source of inspiration for designers. The vibrant colors and playful illustrations in these books can help spark new ideas and help you see things from a different perspective.

Take a Walk in Nature

There’s no denying that nature is one of the most beautiful things in the world. So why not use it as inspiration for your next design project? From the patterns of leaves to the colors of a sunset, there are endless possibilities when it comes to finding inspiration in nature.

Taking a walk in nature can also help clear your mind and give you some much-needed time to think about your project.

Music

Music may be a wonderful method to stimulate your creative thinking. Music may assist you access your creative side and produce some fantastic design ideas, whether you’re listening to your favorite album or looking at new artists.

Go to an Art Gallery or Museum

Viewing art can also be a great way to get inspired. Whether you’re visiting a museum or simply looking at paintings online, observing other artists’ work can help you see things in a new light and come up with some fresh ideas for your own projects.

Go to an Antique Store or Vintage Shop

If you’re looking for some unique inspiration, take a trip to an antique store or vintage shop. Surrounded by old items, you may find yourself seeing things in a new way and coming up with some original ideas for your project. You could even browse vintage designs on Etsy to get some inspiration.

Look Through Fashion Magazines

Fashion magazines are another great source of inspiration, especially if you’re working on a design project that involves clothing or accessories. From the latest trends to classic looks, you’ll be sure to find plenty of inspiration in these magazines.

At the very least, you can find some really interesting color palette inspiration in fashion magazines.

Talk to a Friend

Sometimes doing something completely different than the work on hand can clear your mind enough to leave room for fresh inspiration. So go ahead and take a break from your project to chat with a friend. You never know, they may just have the perfect idea for your next great design.

People Watch at Your Local Coffee Shop

Another great way to get inspired is to watch people at your local coffee shop. You never know who or what you’ll see, and you might just come up with some creative ideas for your project by observing the people around you.

Take a Trip

If you’re really feeling stuck, sometimes the best thing to do is take a trip. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to go somewhere far away; even taking a day trip to a nearby town can help you clear your mind and come up with some new ideas.

Get Some Sleep

If you’re feeling creatively drained, it might be time to get some sleep. Sometimes all you need is a good night’s rest to recharge your batteries and come up with some great new ideas.

Design Inspiration Can Be Found Almost Anywhere

Whether you’re looking for a fresh perspective or simply trying to get out of a design rut, these ten sources of inspiration can help you bolster your ideas and come up with some truly original designs. So don’t be afraid to explore new places and try new things; you never know where you’ll find your next great idea.

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Font Roundup

Likely Story

VJ Type

Arthur Simonini

Martine Syms

Mama Joyce Peppa Sauce

Slava Kirilenko

DAD Agency

Pact Media

Dante

Custo

Houseplant

Santa Teresa Fest

Kim Kneipp

Panic Studio

Creative custom cursors are basically unique customized pointers. Throughout the years, the cursor has been modified to assume different shapes and characters. These customized pointers can boost a site’s interaction and traffic. Many websites have adopted custom cursors because they help them stand out and attract more customers.

Benefits of Creative Custom Cursors

Though they’re not going to make a massive difference in how your website is received by visitors, custom cursors can make an impact, including:

• Help maintain the theme of the website.
• Can attract more customers.
• Build website aesthetics.
• Are easy to make.

How to Choose a Custom Cursor

Here are some factors to consider when looking for a custom cursor for your next website project.

Suitability

Getting a custom cursor that suits your website can offer great user interaction. If your site targets young users, having a quirky cursor can enhance engagement with your website. Whereas if your target market is older, having a custom cursor might not get you the same results.

Formal websites should use default cursors and stay away from custom ones. This helps to maintain the site’s formal tone.

Functionality

Some custom cursors don’t work well with older browsers. If a user opens a website using an old browser that doesn’t support custom cursors, the pointer will assume its default design.

This means features that work with the custom cursor will not be as effective when using the default cursor, which in turn affects user experience. This is something to heavily consider.

Speed

Your site’s loading speed is an important factor if you want to rank well on Google and attract more visitors. Minor site upgrades such as a custom cursor will not typically affect your site’s speed.

18 Examples of Creative Custom Cursors

And now, the part you’ve been waiting for: on to the list of creative and eye-catching custom cursors worthy of your consideration.

1. Custom Cursor by Simon Busborg

See the Pen
custom cursor by Simon Busborg (@simonbusborg)
on CodePen.light

2. Custom Cursor Navigation Effect by Mark Mead

See the Pen
Custom Cursor Navigation Effect by Mark Mead (@markmead)
on CodePen.light

3. Custom Cursor Inverting Color by Uwe Chardon

See the Pen
custom cursor inverting color by Uwe Chardon (@uchardon)
on CodePen.light

4. Custom Cursor by Ivan Di Stasio

See the Pen
Custom cursor by Ivan Di Stasio (@IvanDiStasio)
on CodePen.light

5. Custom Cursor With Mixed-Blend-Mode by Victor Hripko

See the Pen
Custom cursor with mix-blend-mode by Victor Hripko (@victorhripko)
on CodePen.light

6. Custom Cursor Effect by Ivan Grozdic

See the Pen
Custom Cursor Effect by Ivan Grozdic (@ig_design)
on CodePen.light

7. Custom Cursor by Tim Jackleus

See the Pen
Custom cursor by Tim Jackleus (@timjackleus)
on CodePen.light

8. Custom Cursor With CSS Variables by Tobias Reich

See the Pen
Custom cursor with CSS variables by Tobias Reich (@electerious)
on CodePen.light

9. Circle Cursors by Chris Heuberger

See the Pen
Circle Cursors by Chris Heuberger (@ChrisBup)
on CodePen.light

10. Magnetic Hover Interaction by Sikriti Dakua

See the Pen
Magnetic Hover Interaction by Sikriti Dakua (@dev_loop)
on CodePen.light

11. Interactive Custom Cursor by hb nguyen

See the Pen
Interactive Custom Cursor by hb nguyen (@hbthen3rd)
on CodePen.light

12. Custom Cursor With GSAP TweenMax and CSS by Karlo Videk

See the Pen
Custom cursor with GSAP TweenMax and CSS by Karlo Videk (@karlovidek)
on CodePen.light

13. Custom Cursor- Circle Follows The Mouse Pointer by Cojea Gabriel

See the Pen
Custom Cursor – Circle Follows The Mouse Pointer by Cojea Gabriel (@gabrielcojea)
on CodePen.light

14. Creating Custom Cursors by designcourse

See the Pen
Creating Custom Cursors by designcourse (@designcourse)
on CodePen.light

15. Circle Cursor With Blend Mode by Clement Girault

See the Pen
Circle cursor with blend mode by Clement Girault (@clementGir)
on CodePen.light

16. Custom Dot Cursor by Kyle Brumm

See the Pen
Custom Dot Cursor by Kyle Brumm (@kjbrum)
on CodePen.light

17. Custom Cursor Using Data-Uri by Sten Hougaard

See the Pen
Custom cursors using data-uri by Sten Hougaard (@netsi1964)
on CodePen.light

18. Mutant Cursor by Rafael Gonzalez

See the Pen
Mutant Cursor by Rafael González (@rgg)
on CodePen.light

Conclusion

A unique custom cursor is a great way to make sure that users don’t — if you’ll pardon the pun — lose the point. Websites that use creative custom cursors that fit their aesthetic or theme create a more branded look and that is synonymous with increased traffic.

If you’re looking for the best custom cursor for your website, we hope this article will help to that end. Good luck to you!

In this post we’ve collected 10 stunning examples of this design trend from Codepen. Have a look and see how you could possibly use this effect in your upcoming projects!

Glassmorphism Example

See the Pen Glassmorphism by Albert (@walickialbert) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism Creative Cloud App Redesign

See the Pen Glassmorphism Creative Cloud App Redesign by Aysenur Turk (@TurkAysenur) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphic Sign in Form

See the Pen Glassmorphic Sign in Form by Shounak Das (@dasshounak) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism Credit/Debit Card (pure CSS)

See the Pen Glassmorphism Credit/Debit Card (pure CSS) by Shounak Das (@dasshounak) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism Page

See the Pen Glassmorphism by Jayasree (@Jayasree_0708) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism Hello

See the Pen Glassmorphism by Vihanga nivarthana (@vihanga) on CodePen.light

Simple Glassmorphism Example

See the Pen Glassmorphism by Supriya (@omeal) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism vs Neumorphism Cards

See the Pen Glassmorphism vs Neumorphism Cards | CSS, Js & VanillaTilt by Quentin Feret (@quentin-feret) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism Animated

See the Pen Glassmorphism Animated by jSpilka95 (@jspilka95) on CodePen.light

Glassmorphism Post grid

See the Pen Glassmorphism Post grid by Vinothkanna (@vinocrazy) on CodePen.light

Each of these sites are featured on Awwwards.com.

Everyday Experiments

Upon visiting this site, you’re met with a highly interactive experience. Each “experiment” is interactive and more content unfolds as you scroll and click.

Un printemps suspendu

Here’s another compelling design that’s sure to inspire. This site follows the journey of two mountain guides and skiers, as you’re fully immersed via full-screen video and 3D rendered, seemingly immersive menu options.

Canvas

And then there’s Canvas. This site is for a design and development studio that’s presenting their portfolio in a unique way. A true marriage of form and function through innovative load screens, parallax effects, and cursor accents.

Reed.be

Reed.be is a website for a digital agency that offers a truly unique interactive experience. On hover, your cursor movements manipulate the main subject above-the-fold. But if you click the emoji hand, the object rotates and spins.

Superfluid

This is another site with super interesting interactive effects that fade in, fade out, and swipe up. Product listings change upon hover and the entire browsing experience is designed to entice you into making a purchase.

Blackmeal

This website for a motion design studio is fun, immediately. The large graphics interact upon hover and offer a warm greeting. Once clicked, you’re met with a portfolio that expands as you scroll.

14islands

Here’s a fun one! 14islands is a design and development studio. Their website is playful and informative. It features a custom cursor, unique hover effects, and parallax scrolling.

Altermind

Get ready to go on a journey on the Altermind website. This consultancy website uses parallax effects that work both vertically and horizontally.

Khoa Lê

Khoa Le is a filmmaker and this website serves as a digital portfolio. More parallax effects are featured here as well as full-width videos and interesting hover effects.

Delassus

Delassus is a website for a producer of avocados, tomatoes, and other produce. The site is super colorful, compelling, and interactive.

Beans Digital Marketing Agency

Another top choice is the Beans Digital Marketing Agency. This website offers a unique spin on the traditional marketing agency site with full-width videos and a fun and vibrant campaign to go along with the parallax effects and fascinating load effects.

JazzKeys

Now this is a super cool website design! The JazzKeys site responds to your keyboard input, creating an impromptu jazz masterpiece.

Listening Together

The Listening Together website by Spotify goes to new design heights. It features an interactive, three-dimensional graphic of a globe. Upon clicking one location, you can hear a song snippet currently being streamed from there. Then, the site will match you up with another location that’s currently playing the same song. Innovative!

Moooi

What a delightful site design this is! The Moooi site offers a fully-immersive browsing experience with video and audio for showcasing the brand’s products.

Portfolio

The Portfolio website is for a graphic and interface designer. It offers the cutest loading screen ever as well as interesting parallax, hover, and cursor effects.

Gucci Mascara Hunt

What a novel way to promote a product! This website is an interactive game that was used to promote a new mascara.

underpromise

The website for underpromise provides an interactive experience that speaks to those who have a deep appreciation of both the visual and literary arts.

Agora

Another site worth checking out is Agora. It’s designed to promote a payment processing service and app. It does so through the use of truly immersive and interactive parallax design.

Olivier Gillaizeau

And if you need more portfolio site design inspiration, this one for a creative director uses a timeline-style layout with stylish hover effects, parallax scrolling, and an abundant use of color.

Clmt.

Here’s a website for a photographer and art director that offers unique scrolling effects and an overall engaging appearance.

&Tradition

And here’s another site example that promotes products in an innovative way. This site uses slideshow headers, hover effects, and large photos to capture visitor attention.

HENGE

Last on our list is a site for a design agency with full-width videos, parallax effects, autoplay slideshows, and in-depth gallery-style presentations.

Use these Award-Winning Website Designs as Inspiration

If you’re trying to build a website right now, it can be difficult to know where to start. Thankfully, many award-winning website designs are out there to serve as solid inspiration for your next project. Wander in the dark no longer, this collection of sites should get your creative juices flowing.

Best of luck!

Yes, it is possible, and we’ve collected several examples of this creative technique here for you to browse today.

CSS Lighthouse

This CSS painting of a lighthouse is simple yet eye-catching. It features sharp lines and subtle colors.

Mona Lisa

This painting features a detailed recreation of the Mona Lisa. What an impressive feat!

Lace

And then there’s this recreation of an old portrait painting. Unfortunately, CSS paintings are sometimes affected by particular browsers, and this one was not fond of my using Safari!

Pure CSS Francine

This old-style portrait painting is another fantastic example of the time, care, and skill that goes into creating CSS art.

Koala

This one’s super simple but inspiring, nonetheless. This cute little koala face was made entirely with CSS.

Vignes

This recreation of a poster with fruit on it looks good enough to eat. Or, at the very least, like it was created using traditional digital art methods.

Gaze

Here’s another classic art style painting that features a woman gazing upward. The details are soft and lovely.

Skull and Snake

This CSS painting features a skull and a snake. It’s a super simple design but definitely compelling.

Codevember

This CSS painting features a faithful recreation of a Gameboy Color.

Zigario

Here’s another fantastic example of a CSS painting. This one is a take on a vintage cigarette ad. The artist really captured the aesthetic well.

Bookman Mascot

And then there’s this adorable mascot graphic. It’s features a cartoon man with a splayed open book for a head. Fun!

NES Controller

If nostalgia is your beat, this painting of a NES controller will definitely be appealing to you.

Pink

This painting is simply gorgeous. The woman’s frame is softly illuminated by a pink light. Lovely.

School Building

This CSS painting of a school building is blocky, simple, yet super impressive.

The Night King

And last on our list is this adorable and fun cartoon painting of the Night King from Game of Thrones. Can’t go wrong with a pop culture reference as your subject, right?

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Are You Inspired?

Now that you’ve seen these stunning examples of CSS paintings, perhaps you will be inspired to take up the figurative digital paintbrush and get to work. Or maybe you’ll be motivated to seek out more of this truly compelling and creative artwork.

Regardless, it makes me wonder, what can’t CSS do?

That’s why we’ve done the hard part for you and sourced 16 pitch deck templates that offer real functionality and look great doing it. Each of these have a slightly different look that can be utilized for a wide range of businesses or projects.

Pitch Deck Keynote Presentation

This pitch deck offers a clean layout with a definitive style that can serve your presentation well. It’s got a lot of whitespace but plenty of key feature sections that can make your content stand out.

Nia Pitch Deck

The Nia Pitch Deck is lovely to look at. The layouts utilize angles to stunning effect to make your content look unique. It can be used for corporate work but skips the traditional boxy design.

Business Pitch Deck Keynote

Another option is the Business Pitch Deck Keynote. This one makes stunning use of a grayscale layout with colorful punctuation to make a statement.

Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

If you’re looking for something clean, the Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template is a nice choice. Create bulleted lists, colorful charts, graphs, icons, and more.

Pitch Werk

Pitch Werk is another great option for making a presentation that makes an impact. Drop shadow effects on images, unique chart options, and image gallery layouts offer diversity in presentation.

Manola Pitch Deck Keynote Presentation

Or you can use the Manola presentation that offers an all-business pitch deck layout that gets your point across without being boring.

Lyon – Presentation Deck Template

The Lyon pitch deck is super simple but has the benefit of offering plenty of color options for backgrounds, text, and charts.

Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

Your pitch deck will look professional and sophisticated if you use this option. It offers interesting design elements, however, that make it stand out. Check out the angular graphics on that pricing table slide, for instance.

Matrix – Minimal Powerpoint Presentation Template

If a darker look is more your thing, the Matrix PPT is lovely. Use full-width images, add delicate overlaid text and icons and more to get the effect you want.

Startup Pitch Deck Presentation

The Startup Pitch Deck Presentation offers plenty of colorful backgrounds, text options, and stylized numbering and graphics to keep your audience engaged.

Pitch Deck

The Scofe Pitch Deck is corporate-looking, with lots of whitespace, room for charts and maps, as well as a unified color story.

Pitch Deck Powerpoint Template

Another option worth checking out is this Pitch Deck PowerPoint Template. With curved graphical elements and interesting image segmentation, your presentation will be as engaging as it is informative.

Pitch Deck Keynote Template

This option includes 32 slides with a variety of style and layout choices. Include images, statistics, maps, charts and graphs, image overlays, bullet points, and more.

Spielburg – Pitch Deck

Still another choice is this Spielburg pitch deck. Its large, bold headings make it easy for your audience to stay abreast of the topic at hand. In addition, the easy flow of information is concise and attractive.

Bright Pitch Deck Keynote

You may also wish to consider the Bright Pitch Deck, which uses bold and bright colors to draw you in. Who ever said presentations have to be boring?

Fintech Startup Pitch Deck Presentation

Last on our list is the Fintech Startup Pitch Deck Presentation. This one offers bright, solid color to engage the eye, all while using subtle color variants to overlay text boxes, charts, and graphics. This one uses the best of web design to create a familiar presentation layout that works.

Getting Started with Pitch Deck Templates

Pitch deck templates can help you immensely when trying to put together a presentation that appeals to your target audience. Without it, you’ll be tasked with spending a lot of time custom designing something when you could be spending that time carrying out other operations of your company.

Hopefully, this collection of pitch deck templates will guide you toward an option that suits your needs and truly best represents what you’re about.

As more and more websites have shifted to dark mode in 2020, we thought it imperative to highlight some designs that really capture the concept of dark designs well. What follows is a list of over 20 delightfully dark website designs you’ll definitely want to check out.

Serge Thoraval: Atelier

The Serge Thoraval: Atelier website doesn’t just offer a dark design — it also features some really interesting effects. From a mouse hover effect when the site is loading to transition effects when you scroll down the page, this site sets itself apart.

Basilico

This site offers a dark design that makes each portfolio piece really stand out. Plus, when you hover over each item, they color shift and descriptive text scrolls across it from right to left.

Big Drop Inc

Big Drop Inc has a combination of light and dark designs that are both appealing and effective.

DevArt

DevArt is another site with a dark design that helps to make the artwork it features stand out. It’s also easier on the eyes than sites with brighter backgrounds.

Creative Park

The Creative Park website offers up a delightfully dark design that allows the subject of photos to really stand out. It also has some really interesting transition effects for changing slides, clicking links, and opening menus.

Olivia Restaurant

The Olivia Restaurant website mimics the mood inside of the restaurant itself — dark, cozy, and inviting.

3D Hubs

The 3D Hubs website leverages its dark design to make the components it features stand out. This also works well for displaying video and individual items the company offers.

Welford Media

Welford Media is a web design firm that uses a dark design on its website to engage visitors. This design choice allows the company’s tagline stand out at a glance and builds immediate interest.

Meaning 2020

The website for the Meaning 2020 Conference has a dark design as well. The gray background allows the colorful logo to stand out and offers a subdued backdrop onto which videos and photos are placed.

Rich Brown

This is a website dedicated to the work of Rich Brown, an art director and UX/UI designer. The site itself features a dark design onto which video backgrounds play seamlessly.

Artem Pivovarov

The design on this website is super interesting. Artem Pivovarov has a dark design with a prominent photo background. It also has interactive elements in this background that react on hover.

Formigari Srl

Formigari Srl is another site you should check out for dark design inspiration. It highlights videos and photos on a deep gray background that makes the entirety of the content feel immersive.

Canvas United

Still another site you should check out is Canvas United. This site is for a New York-based digital agency that provides some cool transition effects and an immersive experience.

The Kennedys

The Kennedys website currently features an under construction sign that’s set on a dark background.

Resoluut

The Resoluut website offers a dark purple background with images that appear as though they’re hovering on top of it. There is a lot of play with depth of field here.

Fantassin

Still another option is the Fantassin website, which features a dark background and tons of cool scroll effects that draw the eye further down the page.

Cody Petts Studio

The Cody Petts Studio website highlights the work of Cody Petts, including print and packaging designs as well as photography. It’s dark, gritty, and extremely compelling.

Kazuma Kurata

The design for the Kazuma Kurata website offers a dark background that’s intimately inviting. It makes the colorful aspects of featured photos stand out even more. The design and function of the site make it clear why it’s deserving of its AWWWARDs Nominee status.

Bachoy

The Bachoy website highlights a creative and tech studio. The dark design featured here uses a cool spotlight hover effect and interesting interactions with photos as you scroll down the page.

Agency Legend

The Agency Legend website has a truly appealing site that takes advantage of superhero motifs to increase engagement.

Arara

Last on our list is the website for Arara, which offers battery-free bicycle lights. This site is dark but not brooding, and instead uses the darker background to make the bright colors featured in images and videos “pop.”

Dark Website Designs Can Serve You Well

As you can see from the examples listed above, dark website designs can really take the overall look of your website to the next level — whatever that means for you. Whether you want to make colors look more vibrant, ease eye strain, or provide a mood, dark designs offer flexibility in both form and function. Have fun playing with them!

Unlike flexboxes which can only work with a row or a column, CSS grids work in a fully 2D space, allowing you to divide a page into regions of columns and rows. This sounds simple, but it’s a huge deal since you can create web pages, tables, galleries, or other creative modules and layouts.

Developers have done a lot of cool experiments with CSS grids. Here are a few of the most fascinating CSS grid layouts and tutorials across the web.

CSS Grid Template Builder

See the Pen
CSS Grid Template Builder by Anthony Dugois (@anthonydugois)
on CodePen.

CSS Grid: Restaurant Website

See the Pen
CSS Grid: Restaurant Website by Olivia Ng (@oliviale)
on CodePen.

CSS Grid Calendar

See the Pen
CSS grid calendar by Mert Cukuren (@knyttneve)
on CodePen.

Layout-Fun with CSS Grid

How to Build a Calendar with CSS Grid

Isometric eCommerce CSS Grid

See the Pen
Isometric eCommerce CSS Grid by Andy Barefoot (@andybarefoot)
on CodePen.

Building a Scrapbook Layout with CSS Grid

CSS Grid Layout with @support Flexbox Fallback

See the Pen
CSS Grid Layout with @support flexbox fallback by Gustaf Holm (@primalivet)
on CodePen.

Sophisticated Partitioning with CSS Grid

Building a Conference Schedule with CSS Grid

Apple Keyboard

See the Pen
Apple Keyboard by Jon Kantner (@jkantner)
on CodePen.

CSS Grid: Train Ticket

See the Pen
CSS Grid: Train Ticket by Olivia Ng (@oliviale)
on CodePen.

Flexible Data Tables with CSS Grid

CSS Grid: Periodic Table

See the Pen
CSS Grid: Periodic Table by Olivia Ng (@oliviale)
on CodePen.

CSS Grid: Floor Plan

See the Pen
CSS Grid: Floor Plan by Olivia Ng (@oliviale)
on CodePen.

Faster Layouts with CSS Grid (and Subgrid!)

Geometric Business Card with CSS Grid

See the Pen
Geometric business card with CSS Grid by Liz Wendling (@Elwend)
on CodePen.

Grid Garden

Experiment with CSS Grid

Not enough designers use CSS grid. The responsive system is relatively new, but there are a lot of both fun and practical things you can do with it. From creating appealing page layouts to designing interesting modules, CSS grid is an untapped goldmine for web design.

Want to try it yourself? Follow these tutorials and learn how to use grids, or fork some of these pens and do some experimenting. See what you can pull off with a little CSS grid magic.

Looking for some inspiration for your own designs? We’ve collected these elegant, minimalistic web designs for you today. Take a look at these websites and their own spins on the trend.

Pitch

Pitch opens with a unique full screen intro that scrolls out and transitions into the rest of the site content. It uses clean, white design as a base but builds on it with plenty of colorful and lively animations. This is a great example of what you can do with a simple white base and a little creativity.

Hello Monday

Great animation has the power to make a simple website vivid and memorable. The intro animation alone will capture your eye, and all the beautiful transitions and hover effects round it out perfectly. This is the perfect portfolio for a branding company: one that leaves a lasting impact.

OpenAI

Clean doesn’t have to mean boring. OpenAI uses vivid images and a gorgeous gradient background while still being efficient and elegant. Scrolling transitions to white to give you a break from the rich colors, and blog pages blend a simple background with interactive elements and bright images to keep things fresh.

Outline

Check out this website if you’re aiming for minimalism and elegance balanced against vivid imagery. It introduces itself with a simple animated header, then drops you into softly scrolling sliders and bold full screen design. Product pages are intensely colorful with crisp HD pictures, and that same elegant aesthetic.

StoryCode

A little innovation is all it takes to make a simple, clean UI interesting. StoryCode opens with a cool scroll animation that pulls away to reveal their branding tagline. The three-color palette of orange, black, and white provides consistency and contrast in this design.

Jamie McLellan

You’ll definitely remember this designer’s name, as it hovers boldly behind his project images. Click a picture to see its project page, and again to zoom in closer. The whole site is in black and white barring images, but the unique UI does more than enough to make it appealing.

Okalpha

Minimalism doesn’t just mean a white background or a subtle two-toned palette. Okalpha goes all out, starting out with just a pop of color before plunging right into the bright, cartoonish hues. This definitely isn’t an easy aesthetic to pull off, but this site does it by consistently using only three bright colors to balance the intensity.

Good On You

If you’re going for a more sophisticated, muted design, look here for inspiration. This fashion website uses pale browns and blues, with each carefully picked image having just the right intensity of color to accent them.

Mozilla Dot Design

Clean design is all about the UI, and Mozilla Dot Design does it right with a bold and image-focused appearance. Its palette is striking and multi-toned, but it uses it to great effect on every single page.

Bold

Bold uses fresh and professional design to create a stunning aesthetic. The site opens to black and white tones, with a crisp video that also begins in a monochromatic palette. The middle of the page is filled with bright and beautiful colors, before transitioning back into black and white as it reaches the footer. It’s an awesome effect and great for branding.

A Fresh Take on Minimalism

Minimalism is definitely a style can be overdone, but with a unique little twist, you can breathe life into this popular trend. Take note of how each of these websites include a fresh new spin on things. A pop of color, an intriguing intro, a beautiful scrolling animation – add your own touch to it, and your site will stand out.