Website Design Ideas [20 Great Examples & Inspiration Ideas]

As the World Wide Web continues to expand, it is becoming even more difficult to stand out among the enormous number of other websites. Website builders have to come up with unique and eye-catching website design ideas to ensure that visitors stay on your page.

Your website is the visitor’s first impression of your business. Putting effort into the overall design is vital if you want visitors to be intrigued and stay to look at what you have to offer.

In this article, we will cover all aspects of an aesthetically pleasing and alluring site design. We’ll also look at some examples of the best websites with excellent brand identity and digital design.

How to Design a Good Website

There are many factors that go into creating a great website. Designing a website means you have to incorporate different color schemes, imagery, font styles, and branding. But it’s much more than just appealing aesthetics. Here are a few things to consider if you want to create a good website design:

Business Niche

It’s important that your website has a clear indication of what your business is about. The images, videos, and colors have to fit your product or service. For example, it’s a bad idea to have images of pink cartoon flowers if you are a technology-driven company.

Also, consider what is relevant and popular in your niche and implement it into your web page designs. If your business is in the architecture industry, you should add images and videos that are modern, relevant, and true to your business’ style and taste. The most innovative websites use designs that are contemporary, progressive, and define the business’ unique niche.

Purpose

Another major thing to consider in creating a website is its overall purpose. The best website designs have a clear intention. You have to ask yourself:

• What is the purpose of my site?
• Do I want to convey information?
• Is it only for entertainment?
• Is it for attracting traffic and selling products?

The various core purposes of a website can be:

• to showcase the expertise of the company’s members
• to generate leads
• to build reputation
• to educate and inform
• to sell products

Website builders are available that can assist businesses in creating a site tailored specifically to their purpose.

User Experience 

Many cool website designs specifically provide an easy and friendly user experience. When a website is too complex, it is more likely that visitors will move on to another site.

So, what makes for a good user experience? One of the main things to consider is how visitors can navigate your site and interact. Web designers should focus on creating a simplistic page layout that makes it easy for visitors to find all the information they need.

Visual Hierarchy

The best sites use designs with an excellent visual hierarchy, which is the proper arrangement of elements on the page. The most important aspect or focus of your site should be placed first and in a central place.

Balance and visual hierarchy are created by using elements like:

• Color
• Imagery
• Size of blocks
• Whitespace
• Typography
• Contrast
• Texture
• Style

Using visual hierarchy allows the visitor to effortlessly navigate your page.

Mobile-friendly

Viewers need to be able to access your website from any portable device. Unique web designing has different options that allow a creator to view the layout of their site as seen on a mobile phone, iPad, or desktop screen.

This is why it’s important to use the best web design software, to ensure that your site will adjust to different screens and have a responsive layout for all devices.

Attractive and Responsive Design

The best unique web designs are those that are attractive and encourage interaction with your site’s visitors. You should focus on the following elements:

• Font and Style: All the information and text have to be readable. Ensure that you use clear typography that fits nicely into your business’ image.
• Imagery: If you want visitors to have a unique user experience, it is worthwhile to invest in original photos and images.
• Color Schemes: Basic website design software provides users with set color schemes. Choose your color scheme wisely – some colors can contribute to your website’s appeal, while others may not be a successful choice for your business. It may help to read up on color psychology statistics.
• Multimedia: Most people love good visuals. A great tactic to keep visitors engaged is to add animations, 3D, and video to your website.
• Layout: The best creative website layouts are usually those that are simplistic, innovative, and immediately engaging. Avoid a cluttered homepage and keep it the design simple.
• Branding: To enhance the first impression visitors get of your company’s brand, you have to spend time on creating a decent website design concept. It should fit your business branding. Focus on brand identity by personalizing a logo, imagery, and taglines.

Neumorphism is increasingly being used in modern page design. Neumorphism is a visual style that combines shapes, background colors, gradients, shadows, and highlights to mimic a 3D visual effect.

Best Website Designs

Considering all of the factors that make for a successful website design, I’ve evaluated website design ideas from 20 different companies. Here is an overview of each:

Dropbox Business

Dropbox Business features a very straightforward design. It’s extremely easy to navigate, with all the necessary information placed on the landing page. The site has a simple yet aesthetically pleasing color palette of black, blue, and white. It encourages user interaction with the pop-up chat box and the blue highlighted call-to-action ‘Try It For Free’ tab.

While the website doesn’t feature one of the most innovative web design ideas, the layout fits the business niche. Even though it doesn’t have a ‘search bar’, users can easily navigate to the information pages via the dropdown menus.

One of the most notable visuals of the site is the logo. The Dropbox Business logo is very simplistic. It perfectly fits the brand and the service offered.

Slack

Even at first glance, Slack’s website design idea is simplistic, fun, interactive, and bold. The dark purple background and darker primary colors are applied throughout. The first thing that catches your eye is a flashing GIF of a hand which immediately suggests the purpose of the site – communication. Even such a small animation can be a great way to intrigue and engage visitors.

The homepage is very simplistic and only has three different blocks that lead to information pages. To make navigation easier, the website has a search bar on top and a full menu at the bottom of the page.

It isn’t one of the most modern or upscale homepage design ideas, but it is easy to navigate and pleasant.

Adidas

Coming up with a website for a big brand like Adidas can be quite difficult, especially when there are so many products listed in different categories. Adidas hits the nail on the head with its layout by making it as easy as possible to navigate the pages. The complexity of the site might be daunting at first, but it’s easy to get started by simply choosing the product range you need – whether it’s clothing for men, women, or kids.

A black and white color scheme flows throughout the webpage with pops of different colors added for the various categories. The search bar pinned to the header makes looking for your favorite Adidas products even easier. There’s also a membership portal where return customers can sign in and check out faster.

Adidas makes use of one of the best webpage ideas and that is to place a call-to-action button in the menu bar. This button is a shortcut to free shipping and gift voucher purchases.

Slavery Footprint

This website design is immediately eye-catching because of the typography and illustration used. The intriguing question catches the visitor’s attention. The site’s simple color palette of light blue, coral, and yellow is interesting. The page is completely static with no moving parts.

It’s definitely one of the most unique web designs I’ve ever encountered. Two call-to-action buttons are placed strategically underneath the gripping question. Apart from them, there are only 5 page links.

Visitors won’t struggle to navigate the page since there’s no overwhelming content. Because it is so minimalist, there’s no need for a search bar or pop-ups.

The Feed

The Feed uses simple website design ideas to introduce its choice of nutritional products. As you scroll down the homepage, you see the many different categories that include latest releases, sale items, featured products, category lists, and review articles. Users can also search for products by brand.

The Feed doesn’t have a very strong brand or unique color palette. Considering that it’s a nutritional ecommerce store, it succeeds in creating a platform that provides information and prices on its products.

Overall, the site features a basic website design that is interactive and well organized.

ETQ

This QMS software solution company has a very soft and formal aesthetic. The professional font, layout, and color palette of the website are very well executed. To encourage visitors to engage, the landing page has a chatbot pop-up as well as a notification of upcoming webinars.

I was very impressed by this design’s use of visual hierarchy to achieve an easy-to-navigate site. For the amount of information and product ranges available, this is a clean website design that doesn’t look cluttered or complex.

It’s one of the best design inspiration websites to inspire your creativity. The images are all uniquely designed and there’s a modern illustration theme in the background.

World of Swiss

When you click on this page, you’re immediately met with a privacy policy to accept; the World of Swiss website makes it clear that they take privacy very seriously. The website design isn’t that unusual and is what you’d expect from an airline website. It is easy to navigate and search through flight, hotel, and rental car options.

The homepage gives you all the latest information on flying safely as well as introducing some discounts and promos. Compared to other modern website designs World of Swiss falls a bit short, but it provides all the necessary information travelers need to book their flight tickets.

Rainforest Guardians

Rainforest Guardians is a website that focuses on educating visitors on environmental issues. It succeeds in presenting pages of information with relevant photos in a very visual and engaging manner. A color palette of white and blue is repeated throughout the pages with a pop of orange to highlight the ‘Donate’ button.

There is a lot going on, which means that visitors might be discouraged to work through all the information and pages available. Regardless, all blog posts are neatly organized underneath relevant titles. Visitors can sign up, log in, shop, and be part of a community chat group through the site. It’s definitely on my list of nice website designs, especially for this niche.

Evrone 

Evrone boasts one of the modern website designs that use a neumorphic style. It features an elegant 3D black, purple, and red animation theme throughout. This style fits the cryptocurrency niche of the business really well. The website looks technologically advanced and professional.

Overall, the design is very sleek, modern, and simplistic with few moving elements or pages. Apart from a fill-in contact form, there aren’t any other call-to-action buttons or tabs.

Frans Hals Museum

Immediately eye-catching, the Frans Hals Museum’s website features one of the most fun website designs I’ve come across. The bold color blocks that form the background are refreshing and uplifting.

Although the colors are bright, the layout is extremely simplistic with limited text and only a few symbols. When you hover over the symbols with your mouse they have a fun animated reaction. The only drawback might be the placing of these symbols on the left of the screen which makes it slightly hard to locate them at first.

Looking at website design statistics on color blocking and the use of bold palettes, it is definitely a modern trend that helps engage visitors. The Frans Hals Museum aces this style with its interesting design and color schemes.

Nomadic Tribe

Nomadic Tribe has a gorgeous website filled with videos and travel photos. It sports a yellow and coral color palette. This site succeeds most of all in its use of high-quality videos. Visitors are immediately met with a large-sized cinematography experience. This large-scale screen is in itself alluring and engaging. 

The site doesn’t have a search bar, but it is neatly organized into different world locations. When you scroll down, you find even more unique photos and information on different nomadic cultures all over the world. At the bottom of the homepage is a call-to-action that offers visitors to download the Nomadic Tribe app with only one click.

I’d give the website designs and images a 10 out of 10.

Swab the World

The aesthetics of the Swab the World website are gorgeous. With a color palette theme that is quite unique, this site makes an excellent first impression. Very easy on the eye, it entices the visitor to scroll down and find out more.

There are many moving parts and animations. Words scroll and slide from left to right and a statistics graph changes colors when you hover your mouse over it. There are multiple little animation clips that users can click on to view an informational video.

Swab the World has one of the most impressive website homepage ideas that I’ve ever seen. Not only is it uniquely designed with personalized images and animations, but it is easy to navigate and simplistic.

Spotify Design

Spotify is known as one of the leaders in audio entertainment and it definitely doesn’t fall short when it comes to its website design concept. The color scheme is bold and colorful with an array of fluctuating logos and pictures. All images and illustrations are 2D and in a very modern, simplistic style reminiscent of abstract art.

Visitors get easy access to new music release stories and different blog posts on various musical artists. What makes Spotify different is that it has an audio effect linked to the site. There are numerous bold images that have a little sound symbol attached to them. When you click on the sound symbol, you can log in and listen to the song from any device.

Even though there isn’t a search bar on the site, visitors can easily navigate the various pages. If you have an audio or music library business, then this is a great site to visit for some web layout ideas.

Amanda Martocchio Architecture

This architecture website is sleek and minimalist. It creates a great first impression of the business’s style and niche. The landing page is a series of large high-quality photos of designs from Amanda Martocchio’s architecture portfolio. It basically serves as a large photo album of the architect’s designs.

There is no additional information or search bars on the site apart from a short drop-down menu with the business’s contact details. It’s a good website design because even in its simplicity it showcases exactly what the company is about. Having no further information, text, or blog posts on the site is in itself a way to encourage visitors to phone or write an email directly.

Century 21

Century 21 has a beautiful aesthetic. Earthy light brown, gold, gray, white, and black tones run throughout the website. As a brand, Century 21 really hits the nail on the head with their personalized images, photos, and font that scream luxury.

It’s one of the most simple website design ideas that I’ve ever seen, combining elegance with digital retail listings. Users can easily navigate the different retail listings and search for specific homes or agents. There are no call-to-action options, but you can speak to an agent with three different options: ‘buy a home’, ‘sell a home’, and ‘rent a home’.

Looking at mobile compatibility, the site is better viewed when you turn on landscape mode on your phone or tablet.

L’Oursin Seattle

This quaint little restaurant is a great reference for website design ideas for business in the food and beverage industry. What first catches the visitor’s eye is the fun logo design. This logo immediately gives the idea of what the site is about.

Upon further inspection, visitors will find out that the company sells wines, hams, and other fresh produce. Users can book a table via the site and buy gift cards for friends and family. Other purchases can also be made through an easy check-out process.

The landing page is very basic with a few in-store photos and information of dining and market opening times. There isn’t a search bar, but all information is organized neatly.

Other than the logo and a few photos, the site doesn’t have a lot of imagery, but it’s a very simple design idea that fits perfectly into the niche of the business.

Laura Washington Fonts

Opening with a short biography of Laura Washington, the site is very simplistic. It uses a color scheme of dark and light orange and serves the purpose of a small online store. It doesn’t feature any groundbreaking new website ideas but succeeds in its purpose. Visitors can use the search bar and its drop-down menu to look for FAQs, News, or Fonts by Laura. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page, there is a call-to-action that allows visitors to subscribe to an email list.

This website definitely used a pre-made template from their website builder platform but personalized it perfectly. Laura Washington’s logo is eye-catching and encourages engagement from visitors. Overall, the site isn’t that interactive, but if you need to purchase fonts, you’ll be able to navigate your way through the site quite easily.

BBVA Compass

For a financial institution, BBVA Compass has a very successful corporate website design. It features the brand’s color schemes of navy and orange throughout the site. It has recently modernized a lot of its symbols and images to be more up-to-date.

There’s a search bar and information is well organized on different pages. Members can sign in through the membership portal. Visitors can read more about the company and its purpose in our expert BBVA Compass review.

If you scroll down on the homepage, you’ll find numerous informative articles that are linked to the page.

Dior 

Recognized as one of the best fashion brands in the world, the company is expected to have innovative and new website designs. Dior is known for its cutting-edge fashion photos and these are featured all over the site. Categorized in different color schemes, the photos are alluring and intriguing.

Although there are lots of photos, they are well categorized in different collections. Each collection comes with a call-to-action button beneath the photos which says ‘Discover’. If you click it, you’ll find more photos from each particular category. The typography and style of the site are very modern, simplistic, and exactly what one would expect from Dior.

Visitors can search for Dior boutique locations and search through their collections via the two search bars on the site – one placed at the top and one at the bottom of the page.

Urthbox

When you first land on Urthbox’s homepage you immediately notice the contrasting splashes of green, blue, and orange. At the top, there’s an animation of medallions with Urthbox’s logo falling down like coins. This shows some unique web designing, because not only is the effect fun but it engages the visitor and attracts attention.

Without scrolling down further, visitors are encouraged to click on two call-to-action tabs ‘Order Now’ and ‘Give as Gift’. The rest of the homepage is also easy to navigate.

According to many Urthbox reviews, the most appealing thing about its site is its successful branding. The colors, the repeating circles, and the use of font styles combine to show the brand’s strong identity.

Overall, Urthbox has a very responsive design since there are numerous pop-ups and discount offer links that visitors can click on for more information.

Where to Find Website Designs?

Now that you know what it takes to design a great website, you might wonder where you can get good website design ideas. Luckily, you don’t have to be a tech-savvy web designer to create an appealing page. There are many credible platforms available with themes and page-building tools you can use. Some sites offer collections of professional designs that can help you out too.

Here is an overview of our top 5 choices:

Dribbble

Through Dribble, business owners can find some of the world’s best design professionals to help them create their websites. It features some of the best website design ideas for 2021 that can give you inspiration for the design of your company’s landing page and enhance branding.

Best For: Website designers looking for new and exciting website ideas

Price Range: Depends on designer’s fees; anything from $10 – $499

Behance

Behance is a site filled with artwork and illustrations by artists and designers from all over the world. It’s a great space to draw inspiration from for branding, logo designs, art direction, and web design.

Best For: Finding inspiration for interesting website designs and creating mood boards

Price Range: Follows the Designer’s Union Minimum Design Price List for pricing; one-page websites range from $500 to $5,000

WordPress

WordPress is a popular platform used by entrepreneurs, businesses, and freelancers the world over. The platform offers free templates with the option to install various plugins to enhance user experience. Users can build a website from scratch using WordPress without being tech-savvy at all.

Best For: Using templates and designing a website yourself for every kind of site, from blogs to ecommerce

Price Range: Free – $45 p/month

DeviantArt

DeviantArt is a site filled with amazing and unique website designs and images. It’s a great place for web designers to browse through when they want inspiration or to showcase their own work. The platform connects business owners with artists and designers who can create unique and personalized images, animation, and illustrations for a brand.

Best For: Finding artists and designers to create unique branding and creative images

Price Range: Artists and designers can be contacted directly for pricing

Crevado

Crevado puts companies and business owners in contact with web designers from an array of backgrounds. The collection of designers showcase modern and new websites designs that are relevant to all industries.

Best For: Finding expert website designers with modern ideas or showcasing your work as a website designer

Price Range: Use of the platform is free; prices for web designers are determined by the designers themselves

Conclusion

Any business looking to scale and grow should seek website design help to create an appealing site for visitors. A business’ website is not only the first impression potential clients get, it is also a great space to promote and sell products and services. Investing in excellent digital design and building a brand identity will ensure future growth for your business.

Hiring a professional web designer is another option. A good designer will help you tick off important aspects before launching your website. Finding inspiration and following our many web design tips, you’ll be able to create the perfect landing page for your audience.