40 Creative 404 Error Pages to Inspire You

Posted by Gisele Muller on Jun 28, 2010 | 43 Comments

Error pages are often neglected by designers because they are rarely seen, or at least that’s the plan. But we all know things happen. A visitor may incorrectly enter a url, or try to find something on your site that just isn’t there. These are times when the 404 page will receive a few visits, but visiting an error page isn’t necessarily part of a pleasant user experience. That’s why many designers these days are taking a little extra time and effort to get creative with the 404 page. Doing so helps ease frustration by the user and shows an attention to detail. In this post I’ve rounded up 40 Creative 404 Error Pages to Inspire You.

agens

Abduzeedo

Tobias Ahlin

Chris Jennings

Mark Dijkstra

futureofwebdesign.com

twurn

IAMWW

amyherndonphotography.com

designzillas.com

xhtml kitchen

Christopher Meeks

Drexler

Oroza

Sandand Starfish

Imaginaria Creative

The Little Cake Parlour

Carsonified

publicitweet

Salt of the Earth

Doorstep Dairy

At First Sigth

Joyent

dm11sto.com

Veerle

tix02

Fuelly

getdropbox.com

cssremix

Huwshimi

turbomilk

theesthetik.com

Pixel Thread

hdqt.co.uk

Product Planner

chrisglass.com

gadies.com

Sofa

Project Fedena

David Hellmann

About the Author

Gisele Muller is someone that recently discovered a new career online. A person that really likes technology, design, photography and creativity. An eternal geek wannabe, tech fan and a communication lover! Current location: San Bruno, CA – USA. Twitter: @gismullr

Here's some other articles that you will definitely find useful.

43 comments

Eddie
June 28, 2010
Typo on the last bits of “At First Sight”

Nice stuff anyway
Reply
Arshad Cini
June 28, 2010
Personally i like simple 404 pages so Christopher Meeks’s 404 page is perfect:)

Thanks Gisele..
Reply
Peter Kahuria
June 28, 2010
I liked the Abdozeedo 404. I’m a big fan of spaceships and they have a great illustration. Thanks!
Reply
terina
June 28, 2010
AWESOME! thanks!
Reply
Sayrus
June 28, 2010
Nice examples however you don’t need any page 404… The best way is to make for each bad url 301 redirect to your home page… This technic avoid black hat intentions.
Reply
Ivy
June 28, 2010
Great collection!
How about mine? http://afraid-to-dream.net/404
Reply
NicOnlyOne
June 28, 2010
Nice Selection.
I deeply think a 404 page need to propose alternative option as a ling or a buton, we can’t propose a dead end page.
btw, have a look at my own one http://www.niconlyone.com/error/404.html
Reply
Cheltenham Website Design
June 28, 2010
A big thumbs up for Mark Dijkstra!
Reply
Mark Dijkstra
June 28, 2010
Cool list!! Thanks for including my 404 page
Reply
Darren
June 28, 2010
Some of these make you want to enter a non-existant URL just to see them, brilliant examples.
Reply
Eko Setiawan
June 28, 2010
Great collections, thanks…
Reply
RN
June 28, 2010
here is another great one : http://www.apadeloup.com/sdf
Reply
Robert
June 28, 2010
Cool list – if I may, I would like to add http://blackmoondev.com/404 as well. Cheers
Reply
Web Design, SEO and Internet Marketing
June 28, 2010
OK, you now have a fan Gisele! I’m always in awe by your depth and wondering how you find your subject matter…but this time…where or should I say HOW, do you find these. Great research!
Reply
Dee Kumar
June 28, 2010
Interesting collection. Nice to add a bit of creativity where most people would not even expect it.
Reply
Website Design Companies
June 28, 2010
Really your blog have nice collection of posts. I hope that i’ll come again on your blog.

Thanks for sharing Gisele Muller
Reply
Hermes
June 28, 2010
Nice collection, some inspiration there! Another good one over at http://designstuffdaily.com/blahblah
Reply
Helder Amos
June 28, 2010
This is an excelent idea, I’m the kind of person that always make a mistake typping the url of pages and get tones of 404 error pages and I get very upset, but if all the webs have brilliants 404 error pages like those it would be fun to get them.
Reply
Jordan Walker
June 28, 2010
Those are a great 404 pages.
Reply
Chris Penree
June 28, 2010
Blizzard Entertainment’s 404 page is quite good too. Too bad I can’t go to it at work Damn restricted interwebs. Do check it out though. http://www.blizzard.com
Reply
Fakhre
June 28, 2010
Really Nice !
Reply
Suhela
June 28, 2010
This is a really amazing collection of 404 error pages!!!
Reply
Nico
June 28, 2010
I was searching for a list of great 404 error pages around the web, and i got some great list from similar sites and collected the great list. And I can say that the above collections are really great..
Thank you buddy…
Reply
Alex W
June 28, 2010
Great collection!
‘Sight’ is mis-spelled for At First Sight
Reply
Melissa joyce
June 28, 2010
Really good collections ….
Reply
ddeja
June 28, 2010
Thanks so much. I was just looking for an inspiration for my new project and 404 site. This article is exactly what i needed.

Cheers:)
Reply
Xcellence IT
June 29, 2010
incredible collections…
Reply
Pedro
June 29, 2010
Those “twurn” birdies are quite amusing.
Reply
Angelee
June 29, 2010
Great ideas…
Reply
Allen Cooper
June 29, 2010
This has inspired me to to update my boring 404 page.
Reply
Gisele
June 30, 2010
Hey guys,
Thanks for all comments, pages shared, etc…
It’s really nice to hear back from you!!
=)
Reply
Jim Wiberley
July 1, 2010
Hi Guys,

love the list, would love to add our 404 http://www.staak.co.uk/404

Keep up the good work!
Reply
tyler
July 2, 2010
Great pages!
This one has always been one of my favorite. If you are familiar with the site, it’s even better!
http://www.homestarrunner.com/404
Reply
Ant Gray
July 3, 2010
Ha, some of them used birds from Twitter 404.
Reply
Designersos
July 19, 2010
nice collection for 404 error pages ;D really cool for all of its
Reply
Philip Brown
July 19, 2010
Check out this 404: http://www.holyghostoutdoors.com/not-a-page
Reply
bee
July 22, 2010
A really cool collection, thank you
Reply
asif aleem
July 28, 2010
good job!
Reply
Ari
August 13, 2010
Good Ideas!!! Thanks.
Reply
Richard
September 3, 2010
There are some great ideas here. I’m feeling inspired to improve the 404 page for my site now.
Thanks
Reply
Cheltenham
November 2, 2010
Inspiration indeed, – we’re just working on ours at the mo, and it’s really hard to come up with something that ticks all boxes. Need to fix that damn search box too
Reply
Engin Topcuoglu
September 27, 2011
they all were successful and interesting 404 page designs, a very successful and creative.

I would like to share with you my page 404:) Turkish, but I think the design is as beautiful. Design and coding was done with HTML5.

http://www.engintopcuoglu.com.tr/404
Reply
v1nc3nt
December 26, 2011
One day one amazing 404 : http://www.bonjour404.fr
Reply