55 Inspiring Examples of Gradients in Web Design

Gradients are a great way to add interest, color, and even depth to a web design. You can use the same color in many shades, many shades of many colors or several other combinations you may think of. You can go linear or radial. The point is that gradients are beautiful and can give your website a very unique style. You can use a cool gradient for the whole website design, or only in the header, footer or just in a couple elements of it, but I’m pretty sure about one thing: combining the right colors and shades will make you a gradient lover! You will start using gradients all over, maybe even at your dinning room wall.

So here is our inspirational selection for this week: beautiful gradients in web design. And don’t forget to tell us if you have some samples of gradients to share. (more…)

Read More

50 Retro and Vintage Web Designs to Inspire You

Last week, Henry posted an article with 30 Fonts Perfect for Vintage and Retro Style Design and I simply loved the first font of the list, the matchbook typefaces. By the time I saw it I could think of several good ways to use it in web design, print design on even other ways. I was so inspired that I decided to do a selection of retro and vintage websites for our weekly web design inspirational post.

I really like retro and vintage stuff… websites, posters, print, adds, everything. I think it’s amazing how an ‘old style’ still get our attention and appreciation. For this selection of retro and vintage web designs, you will see retro and vintage elements, fonts, images, colors, textures, etc. I hope you enjoy the selection. And of course, if you have a cool retro/vintage site to share with us, the comments are open. (more…)

Read More

50 Beautifully Brown Web Designs

Last week for our usual Monday inspirational post we presented you with a showcase of web designs featuring the color yellow. Many of you enjoyed the focus on one color and even asked that we showcase another color. Since yellow is bright and bold, we thought we would go neutral this week and focus on brown. Brown is an earthy color that represents simplicity, friendliness, and dependability. Maybe it was these characteristics that caused UPS to build their entire brand around brown.

Here are 50 beautiful brown web designs that will inspire you. You will see that brown makes a great base color for a design and works well with many other colors. (more…)

Read More

50 Inspiring Textured Web Designs

After showing you A Showcase of Clean White Web Designs a couple weeks ago, it’s time for us to add some textured designs to our lists. Textures are a great way to give a special touch to a website. They can be used in a specific part of the layout – the header/footer, for example, or they can be used in the whole page as a background. The thing is that textures are versatile, beautiful and stylish. So here are 50 excellent examples of textures in web design to inspire you. (more…)

Read More

Adding Depth with Pixel Perfect Line Work

A pixel is a single point in a raster image. Computer displays are capable of showing millions of these at a time. So how can one lone pixel have an impact on a web design? It probably can’t. However, if you extend that pixel in one direction, it becomes a line, and in the hands of a masterful designer with an attention for subtle detail, the 1px line is a powerful design element. It can be used in many different ways, but in this article we’re going to take a look at how pixel perfect line work can add depth to a design. (more…)

Read More

10 Tips for Writing Better CSS

Writing your first piece of css code can seem really weird if you’re used to working with tables, or just haven’t written code before. In this article I want to talk about 10 different ways you can write proper and clean css code as well as streamline the process and ensure you’re getting the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible. (more…)

Read More

10 Super Useful Tools for Choosing the Right Color Palette

Whether you are designing a clean corporate website or a grunge portfolio site, color is going to play a major role in how the design is perceived by the audience. That’s why it’s important to get the colors right upfront. There are plenty of tools out there made especially for this, but like anything else some are better than others. Here are 10 color tools that I think are exceptionally useful. (more…)

Read More

10 Blog Designs with Innovative Layouts

It seems that the majority of blogs all follow a standard layout: a long list of posts on the left and a sidebar on the right containing such things as recent comments, popular posts, etc. For this reason, when designing a blog, it is so important to do something innovative with the layout to help it stand out from the crowd. (more…)

Read More

10 Beautiful Letterpress Business Cards

Like many other creative types out there, I am fascinated with great looking business cards. That is why we recently launched a new site called Card Observer. In the two weeks of being live, Card Observer has received tons of great submissions, of which many have been letterpress printed cards. (more…)

Read More

New Site Launched: Card Observer

We’re excited to announce the launch of Card Observer, a showcase of only the best and most beautiful business card designs. On an internet overflowing with web design galleries, we felt their was a real need for a site such as this. (more…)

Read More