Making design choices for your website can be a daunting task. Sometimes, you’re not sure what’s going on, or what direction to take your web design. Well, that’s where Betterment comes in. We don’t want you to get overwhelmed (or be without inspiration), so for this post.
But what makes bold and clean so special, you might ask?
The interwebs are a big place, and it can be easy for your site to blend in and get lost, unless you’ve purposefully designed it to stand out. Bold, clean designs draw attention and make browsing easy for users. Bold makes a statement, while cluttered, mundane websites make users bounce before you’ve even had the chance to tell them what you’re all about. Clean design also helps the right things stand out (like your CTA) and minimizes distractions. Check out the picks below, and let me know what you think.
Here are 30 bold and clean web designs for your inspiration.
30 Sites to Inspire You
Everlane
With a “back to basics” theme, Everlane (or, as I’d call it, Everlasting Awesomeness) is cutting out the fluff with a clean design and bold font.
Catscarf
This site features a big photograph of a pretty suave-looking cat wearing a cat scarf (yeah, you read that right — cat scarves for sale). We see the über chic name of the featured scarf and a perfectly placed CTA just below. What do users do? They shop. When do they shop? RIGHT MEOW!
THISISPAPER
Like Catscarf, THISISPAPER also features a great full-size image that draws your eye right to the CTA. Buy a copy? Don’t mind if I do!
Falve
A carousel of color-rich, full-page images with a clean, simple, sans serif font welcomes you on the homepage and implores you to stay.
Brave People
Check out the Brave People page, and you’re greeted with brave design. Bold, big photography and parallax design are complemented nicely by the mouseover effect on the photos of the team.
Intersection
Intersection’s site puts you on the street of a big city, looking up at a skyscraper — and directly at the site menu.
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Harry’s
With another carousel, Harry’s cycles through high quality images with sans serif fonts. Each slide bears a smart description of their razors and accessories.
GC Watches
GC Watches is presenting you with a timeless design: clear copy next to bold images.
Squarespace
Interactive graphics? Yes, please! Squarespace takes the bold image up a notch with animation.
Jun Lu
This design company knows what they’re doing. A neutral, gray background lets the product images take center stage.
Jonathan Decosta
One word: grayscale. This site shows just how bold black-and-white can be.
Escape Committee
Red is a power color, and Escape Committee boldly embraces it as their accent color.
Wondersauce
Opposites attract for Wondersauce, a digital development company that uses a clean, white font on a natural woodgrain background.
Nixon
Nixon splits its site with bilateral symmetry, with one side for each sex. Grayscale photos of a man and a woman facing the simple, three-option menu directs users right where they need to go.
IWC Schaffhausen
IWC Schaffhausen offers visitors a window into nature from the computer to introduce visitors to the aquatimer collection; it’s an unexpected and refreshingly clean design for a watch manufacturer.
Doug Aitken: The Source
A brief intro flashes photographs across the screen with soft, pulsating music. After the intro, video interviews continue with each creative individual in his project. A bold choice; as we recently discussed, video can be tricky.
Spotify
Scroll beyond the hook & promise, and you’ll hit a design explosion. Big, high definition photographs dominate the page, which is complete with parallax scrolling and a clear CTA.
Britney Spears
It’s Britney, bitch. But in all seriousness, the design team nails it with a high quality image and just Britney’s name. Because she needs no introduction.
Google Glass
The Google Glass rolls through striking full-page images of different people wearing Google Glass in different situations for a simple-yet-bold design choice.
Shaun White
The snowboarder’s site greets you with an excellent action shot of him in the clouds. If you’re into snowboarding, this picture is definitely going to capture your attention.
Jack Daniels
Once you get past the age verification, the black-and-white branding is carried throughout the home page, which greets you with a carousel featuring different varieties of the whiskey.
Crop the Block
Crop the Block truly showcases their filmmaking cred with a great selection of stunning video clips and exquisitely paired typography.
Symbolset
A color-changing background with animated white type make this site one-of-a-kind.
Whiteboard
Whiteboard packs a punch with their single-page design, bold contrasts, and mouseover effects.
Liberio
Liberio declares simplicity with flat design. The site delivers with inviting graphics on a muted gold background. The warm, happy graphics of people, representative of three potential groups of product users, blink and smile at you, which is a nice touch.
Dropbox
Sometimes less is more. Dropbox makes a clean entrance on their homepage with a white background and blue illustration.
Simone Marcarino
Hey, his page title says it, and I agree: smashing design. Marcarino uses bold colors with a minimalist honeycomb design combined with a striking mouseover effect.
Cambridge Healthcare
Healthcare providers rarely have websites with nice design, but Cambridge does. The vital info is showcased within a monochromatic blue color scheme.
Pulse
With the home page horizontally divided by color and content, Pulse provides bold contrast with simple, clean graphics.
Dropify
Warm, bright, exciting colors make the hero area of this single-page design really pop. Further down the page, the bright colors are contrasted with a simple, white background.
So, what’s going on?
You may have noticed a commonality among many of the designs — high quality images, along with white, non-serif font on a color background. While that design trend demands attention, those aren’t the only design routes you can take. Bold, clean and visually exciting web design can come in many formats from videos to static graphics, grayscale to bold color, and full-page photo backgrounds to sliders. Bold comes in a variety of flavors, and it’s up to you to pick the bold flavor that works for your project.
Hopefully, you’ve got a lot of inspiration and have an idea of how you’ll embolden your next site design. Let me know what you thought of these choices — and what you think about bold, clean design. We love your feedback!
