20 Inspiring Examples of Big Backgrounds in Web Design
One way to easily define the tone and mood of a website is to use a big background image. However, when doing this, you need to consider that big images often have a lot going on, so it’s important to take a minmal approach with other aspects of the design. Not doing so could result in a website that is far too busy, cluttered, and difficult to navigate. So for your inspiration, here are 20 examples of how to effectively use big background images in web design.
Uber – Portfolio WordPress Theme
Whitmans New York
Studio Octopi
Von Dutch
Hiu Denim Co
Casey Britt
Range Rover Evoque
The Amazing Spider-Man
Suit up or Die Magazine
H-Art
My Own Bike
Tim Roussilhe
Tag Interativa
Stephan Rizon
Jalbert Productions International
8 Bis
Mecenat Musical
Marcus Thomas LLC
Mendo
Project Birdman
The Best Designs
Awwwards
CSS Design Awards
About the Author
I love communication, technology, web, design, movies, gastronomy and creativity. Web writer, portuguese/english translator and co founder of @refilmagem & @mentaway Twitter: @gismullr
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15 comments
Kirsten
May 7, 2012These are some great examples! Very inspiring to see what has been done with larger graphics. It’s so visually appealing.
Joint Medias
May 7, 2012Great selection of inspirations!
Web Designer Manchester
May 7, 2012Thanks for sharing these. There are some great examples here of big bold backgrounds working well.
Derek Kimball
May 7, 2012That’s a great point about being careful when choosing a photo and the design elements of the site. I’ve seen some sites that didn’t apply that rule and everything was far too cluttered.
What I love about these large photo background sites is that they have so much character. I bet it saves web designer’s a lot of time and effort as well…let the photo do the talking rather than having to invest loads of time creating visually interesting page layouts.
Adam Hermsdorfer
May 7, 2012Always a solid list, thanks Gisele!
Mike DeLeon
May 7, 2012Great picks! I love big background designs, especially when they’re fullscreen, they take on completely different feel.
Hisman
May 8, 2012Wow,,great lists thanks!!
But be careful using large photo as background can be eat your user’s bandwidth
Design Turnpike
May 8, 2012In this age of ultra fast connections and downloads, why NOT use great large imagery? Nice samples.
SentConcepts
May 9, 2012I’m always hesitant to using big background images, but it’s probably time to get over that.
Lawerence Malone
May 9, 2012I personally believe one of the latest web design trend is usage of big background images. Designers nowadays often use photos to create something new in the website. The time has been changed for the betterment for sure.
Gerwin van der Feijst
May 10, 2012It is always a tradeoff. If possible we try to use two images instead. One for each side and the content traditional in the middle. It gives almost the same feeling but speed is less affected.
Paul Weston
May 11, 2012Thought this was a great article and one that has some great sites in it for inspiration. There seems to be a trend with a lot of sites I see using big background images. I agree with you that you have to be careful when using an image of this size because it can make or break a site. There are some great examples and the site that stood out for me was the Amazing Spider-Man site. The use of large city scape image works really well and I love the interaction on the site from the dragging of the back ground and the roll over effects for key points of interest. Great article and I look forward to more like this from yourself.
Orgnix Studios
May 23, 2012We are thinking of applying a big background for our site and looking for references. Great collection!
Sean Hurley
May 30, 2012Stupid questions, what’s the best resolution for these background images? Hit me up @96robots, I’d love to know what is industry standard.
Darren @ 123 Web
June 14, 2012I’ll have 2 of those burgers thanks. Cracking examples of full-page images, and I suppose those could be changed with responsive design depending on the device being used to view the site, so could work for small-screens too.