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Our Top Sites for Design Inspiration
Our Top Sites for Design Inspiration: Issue 51
Every week at Fueled, our London-based creative director, Rob Palmer, shares a handful of inspirational websites with our teams in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. This weekly email acts as a virtual water cooler, encouraging us to congregate across time zones and discuss what brands and blogs are doing to push new trends in web design.
KIKK
If art, science, and technology are your cups of tea then this website might be perfect for you. With a creamy colored background this highly interactive layout will have you drooling for more. Upon arriving on the homepage you are greeted with bold text which follow your cursor as you move from side to side. Scroll down and you will find a gallery of artists, designers, and inventors who call the website home. If scrolling isn’t your thing you can always use the handy drop down menu located in the top right hand corner to guide you.
I LOVE THIS FAME
This website may bring out your inner athletic childhood memories. While the targeted audience is young kids, the site may attract bored individuals stuck in their cubicles through its interactive game of click and shoot basketball. Viewers can find the game by scrolling down from the initial homepage and clicking the button titled “Play Game.” Perfect timing is the key to a 10/10 point system in the click-to-score game, which isn’t as easy as it looks. The orange and yellow layout resembles something out of a Nickelodeon promotional site. An “About” tab in the far right hand corner swings down an explanation of what the nonprofit organization is all about.
NODEPLUS
To describe this website as over the top and vibrant would be an understatement. This in your face matrix like display will have your mind questioning what exactly you’re looking at; but also leave you hooked and begging for more. The text is small and difficult to read on the homepage, however if you scroll down you are greeted with a neat and contemporary layout explaining what it is this company does. The minimal text intertwined with stunning photos really puts the icing on the cake. Scrolling to the bottom page will lead viewers to the typical contact page, however the space like background mixed with the constant spinning orange mountain like image is anything but.
88 & 90 LEX
This neat and organized layout is almost as simple and sleek as the buildings it represents. The main page looks like any other typical condominium advertisement site. Labels such as “Home,” Amenities,” and “Residences” are laid out in a neat horizontal line beneath the site logo. Scrolling down will reveal to you a cream-colored background with an animated picture of the two residences. Minimum amounts of content make this aesthetically easy on the eye. The next few pages allow you to interactively click-through circular pictures of neighborhood highlights, as well as stunning images of both interior and exterior of each residence. You are even given a page dedicated to the over the top prices attached to these over the top amenities.
SILENZA
This multi brand women’s lingerie website mixes a classy black layout with sensual moving images you’re more likely to find in a high-end luxury store on 5th avenue. Mini video clips of women overlooking european streets oozes luxury on all fronts. A menu button in the top right hand corner brings you to the “Story” of the company and its Italian roots. If you become hooked you are afforded a list of brands associated with the company. If your taste buds are truly intrigued by what your eyes see you can click on “shops” which lists the companies locations. A pin-point map is included as well, just in case you confuse this one of a kind uber lingerie store with a “lower end” Victoria Secrets.
DREAM CAR COLLECTION
If kids could design their own fun-filled interactive website with cars as the centerpiece, this would be it. Viewers have the ability to explore the website in order to get inspired by a kid’s dream of helping other children by creating a “dream car.” Beneath each dream car is artwork, videos, and fun facts that relate. If you don’t want to read loads of content you can watch the introductory video to get a sense of what’s going on. The site is a bit crowded with information, which may make it intimidating at first however there are plenty of clickable buttons to lead you exactly where you want to go. With a the color scheme and cartoonish characters used the site is very welcoming to all newcomers.
SPOTIFY-TASTE-REWIND
Quite possibly the most well-known music streaming company has rolled out its latest feature, a time machine of sorts. The homepage opens to a dark purple like gel blending into itself with an end product displaying a unique artist from a specific decade. The interactive aspect of the site prompts you to choose from a picture display of current artists and uses the “time machine” like feature to match similar artists from past decades. The site will then bring up an array of vibrant and bright colors as well as a flash of the year across the screen until you are brought to an album picture list of past artist while their song plays in the background. You can scroll through the five or so decades, each representing a different musical artist or group.
SPACELAMB
The blue to purple to light pink backdrop with a spaceship shooting out bubbles atop of a large start button lends itself to quite an intriguing opening page to this website. Pressing the start button is the only option for moving forward, and doing so will send the spaceship shooting off-screen and land you on the main page. The homepage has an uncanny resemblance to the starting of a video game with the same color scheme found throughout. Like most normal human beings viewers will most likely choose to click “play” rather than “about.” Where you are prompted to direct the lamb character around various sized asteroids in order to collect points. If viewers decide to head to the “about” page they will be given a summary of 12 Wave’s capabilities in the browser and mobile device sector.
VN STAR
At first glance this website is quite plain and unappealing until you scroll down and realize just how different it really is. This quirky and seemingly unusual predominantly white layout with a few odd blue shapes floating around.As you scroll down things begin to fall into place quite literally.While there is constant scrolling and heavily text oriented layout, the designs use of pointy and rounded shapes keeps this site unique. For viewers who get easily frustrated by scrolling a vertical menu can be found beginning on the top right hand corner.
