A client proposal has just arrived in your inbox, and now you’re pacing around searching for that spark of an idea that will launch this new project. You need some inspiration, and you need it fast.
Or perhaps the pressure is less acute. Maybe you are looking to build your professional expertise by doing a sweep of relevant websites each day. As you know, keeping a pulse on all the latest web design trends helps position you as an authority when you meet with potential clients.
All in all, not a bad idea.
No matter which one of these scenarios describes your current work life, every good web professional should have a list of the websites they visit when in search of new creative directions or design solutions. To get you started on building your own, here are 20 of the best sites around for getting a dose of sophisticated web design inspiration.
01. CSS Nectar
Submitted web design examples are reviewed by CSS Nectar’s in-house design team before being posted, leaving you with thousands of exemplary web design examples to browse through.
Working on a project for a client with a blog or magazine? Or want to do some industry research on one-page websites? Search by category, color, feature, and country, to hone in on the exact area where you’re in need of inspiration.
02. Wix Playground templates
When top designers make templates with their fellow designers in mind, the results are truly worthy of their own gallery exhibition. Whether you choose to take advantage of the templates or not, even just appreciating the aesthetic triumph will leave you with a rush of creativity.
03. Awwwards
The film and music industries already have their own way of recognizing outstanding performance. Awwwards aims to bring the same concept to the world of web design and development. Submitted websites are brought before the eyes of a carefully-selected jury and Awwwards community members to be reviewed based on design, usability, creativity, and content.
To narrow your focus, search by award type. Sites of the Day lets you wake up each morning to new inspiration. Then there’s the Mobile Excellence Award, a joint effort between Awwwards and Google, showcases mobile sites that combine sharp visual aesthetics with top mobile performance.
04. Lookwork
Constructed to be a visual RSS, this site continually aggregates their favorite content picks from a mass of well-respected creative blogs - over four hundred of them, in fact. Their philosophy is to keep things simple. That means when you arrive to the page, you’re greeted with a wall of image thumbnails. If you want more details, like an image description, social share options, or the link to the source where it originally appeared, they’re just one click away in an expanded view.
