Any and every designer wants (and should) strive to be as creative as possible. We design to be functional and useful, but we should also design to be aesthetically pleasing. Who wants to make a web site that’s an eyesore? Many wonderfully designed items have the perfect blend of functionality and beauty from phones to athletic shoes.
There’s been a bit of murmuring lately in the design community. How is minimalism affecting website designs? How is flat design influencing how and what we design? I’ve even asked the question of whether or not our designs are too simple. We live in an era where white space is glorified and everything has to fit perfectly on a grid inside a page.
So, what happens when you throw that out the window? What does a website look like that bends and breaks many of the rules we are used to seeing and implementing on a daily basis. Well, today we want to show you 15 sites that are unorthodox and ultra creative. These are some of the things you can do if you step outside the box.
Pitertsev
We’ll start off with one of the most creative and interesting sites I’ve seen in a while. There’s movement, there’s content, there’s color but most of all there’s creativity. This portfolio was put together to obviously get people talking and I absolutely love it. It’s very fun to navigate around.
End Time
Much like the site above, we’ve got a lot going on. But it’s so interesting to the eye, you really want to figure out what it is. It’s not like it’s too much, but it’s just enough to create an interest that gets you to what exactly they’re selling. They also have paid attention to some really fine details to create a nice user experience.
Served MCR
I find this site most interesting because of the movement it has. We’re beginning to transition into a place where web designs have to be as dynamic as possible without being as heavy as they could be. This is a wonderful way to create an interesting site while also adding a nice pieces of character with the illustrative style.
Wink TTD
At first glance, you’ll probably think this web design is very typical. We’ve seen the close grid layouts that leave no padding and extra room to breathe. We’ve seen these fonts and this type of navigation — or have we? After playing with this site for a bit, I definitely fell in love because they took a very normal concept and added that fire to it. Way to breathe new life into an old concept.
C-Roots
Navigation menus are typically bars that sit horizontally or vertically along an axis of a web site. That’s what’s standard and that’s what’s expected. C-Roots threw that idea in the trash by creating a spider web type of navigation that’s really neat. And when you click on a new page, it’s revealed unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. This is a very simple yet cool look.
185 Plymouth Street
One way to be creative is to do something with your website that no one else is doing. As a person who will be moving to a new apartment very soon, I did the home search and I can guarantee you there wasn’t a site on my list that did anything like this. It’s hip and probably caters to a very specific set of people. Nonetheless, this website is very creative and somewhat mindblowing just to be for a bunch of lofts.
Eone
When you get to this site you probably scroll down and think it’s just another parallax scrolling site. What’s so good about this one? As you scroll down you get a 360 degree look at the product they are selling. I’m not sure how tedious of a process this was to create, but it’s definitely extremely cool. The site runs less like a website, and more like a movie.
The Society Inc
Once again, this site features the style of handrawn and handwritten elements; this is a rare style that’s being phased out in favor of our super clean, minimalist sites that we love and adore. I also love how the navigation is also planted on the site as a map which kind of makes it fun, interesting and a bit more interactive.
Kapitaal
Kapitaal is obviously a screen printing company that’s pretty popular and active. I like this site because of the treatments on the images, the unbalanced layout and the wonderful icons used. The graphical content of this site is amazing and alluring.
Polecat
While this isn’t really an earth-shattering layout, I have to admit this site is creative in its ways used to embellish the site. From the navigation to the illustrated backgrounds, it’s a very interesting design.
Chaos
With a name like “Chaos”, you’d probably want to live up to that hype. This site attempts to introduce and explain what the designer is into. As someone who has many hobbies, I know how chaotic it can be to try to explain them all. It seems like here, they didn’t even try to hide that fact and came up with a very creative and interactive way to explain oneself.
Ponto
This site looks like what some of our desks look like after a hard day’s work. It seems to be messy and there seems to be no real rhyme or reason behind it. And that’s exactly why I love it. It’s a very artistic interpretation of a portfolio site, which probably does a great job of capturing the character of the folks over at Ponto.
Playful 2013
We may use fun shapes and images but very rarely do we create sites with copy that is angled. This site is definitely portraying the thought of being playful as there are pieces here and there that are challenging the way we normally do things. You’ll also want to make sure you take note of the background when you scroll down. Cool.
Curious Space
This site lives up to it’s name by using it’s space very curiously. We are used to things being perfectly laid out on a grid with equal padding all throughout. Not here, there. Everything seems randomly placed on this web design but I really like it! It’s definitely something different for an acquired taste. Some designers may cringe at this one.
Mosne
It’s not too often that you see a site with such a calm color palette doing a pretty exciting thing. It’s usually even-tempered throughout. But Mosne does a great job of adding punch and movement to their site. On top of that, they have a very intuitive navigation which is always a plus.
Conclusion
While we should be finding solutions to common problems as designers, we must not forget that the work should also be aesthetic. In keeping it good-looking, we must also remember to keep it creative, especially to be a standout amongst many similarly put together sites. These unorthodox sites should motivate you to do something new in your web design.
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