There are two ways you can go when designing a 404 page for your website – you could go the sensible route and make it usable and try to help the reader find exactly what they were looking for or, you could design a 404 page that not only defines the character of the web site or the designer, but also makes it a pleasure and surprise. Its amazing the effect a sprinkle of humor and some creativity can have on someone and it will certainly make your site that little bit more memorable.
Below, we have a collection of sites with original, creative and generally humorous 404 pages. You may notice that some do not meet even the most basic usability guidelines, but who cares, they make us smile! Hope you enjoy them.
This article has been written by Richie Thimmaiah.
Previous parts of the Top 50 Web Design Styles Series
50 Examples of Large Photography Backgrounds within Web Design »
50 Examples of Creative 404 – Page Not Found Pages »
A Showcase of 50 Amazing Personal Blog Web Designs »
50 Creative Examples of Illustrations in Web Design »
50 Professional Web Design Agency Web Sites »
50 Bright and Vibrant Web Designs – Color Inspiration »
50 Impressive Magazine and Newspaper Styled Web Designs »
50 Inspirational and Fresh Minimally Designed Web Sites »
50 Creative and Inspirational Personal Portfolio Websites »
50 Inspiring Web Application and Service Web Site Designs »
50 Examples of Effective Uses of Typography Within Web Design »
50 Beautifully Crafted Corporate Ecommerce Web Designs »
50 Creative Examples of Vintage and Retro in Web Design »
50 Creative 404 Pages
South Park Studios
Dilbert Website
Blizzard Entertainment
Future of Web Design London
Popscreen
GDZLLA SMASH PAGE (NOT FOUND)
Carsonified 404
Chris Jennings 404
Twurn
Houston, we have a problem! Abduzeedo
Henrik Hedegaard – WOOPSIE DAISY! Something went wrong!!!
Wufoo Page Not Found
Jamie Huskisson 404
Tele2 404
TattooSales.com – Page Not Found
What the Dickens…?
Suspended Animations
Oops! You bwoke it
YouCastr – Woops!
Acro Media Inc – Dude, we can't find that page!
< scythe.net 404 Error >
Content Not Found : The New Yorker
Frye/Wiles 404 – Whoops
Pattern Tap 404
Limp Fish – file not found
TinSanity 404
LILEKS – uh oh
Page Not Found – d20srd.org
dawdle.com
Blue Daniel 404 File Not Found
CSS Tricks – Nothing found for Thispagedoesntexist
arbitraryconstant – 404 (missing)
Shelfworthy
Laughing Squid – Page not found
VintFalken.com
Springload: Error 404
Error Finding Page
Expansion Broadcast – Page not found
Bits of Magic – PAGE FAULT ERROR #404
Error – GeekSquad
moock.org >> operation failure >> code 404
Open Adventure – 404!
Site Sketch 101
Bi Bakar mısınız? Sayfayı Bulunamadı!
404 – Casino Lemonade
404 › rbardini.com
404: Lost in the aether
ZEITWENDE
webtressdesign.com – OOPS Wrong Turn
The Web Motel – ERROR!
404 Best Practice Resources
404 Best Practices from CSS-Tricks
Tips for Creating an Informative 404 Error Page
Pimp Your 404: Presentation and Functionality from Perishable Press
How To Customise Your 404 Page from Sitepoint
Turning 404 not found random visitors to blog readers from Tech Snacks
404 Page Management Your Grandma Can Use
404s and WordPress Server Load from alexking.org
The Perfect 404 from A List Apart
5 Tips to Make Your 404 Page More Usable from UX Booth
Why You Should Keep an Eye on Your 404 Stats
How to Find and Fix 404 Errors
A Better 404 – Redux from urbanmainframe.com
About the Author
This post has been written by Richie Thimmaiah. You can visit his personal design blog RichWorks, which is brimming with Photoshop tutorials, daily inspirations and all round great resources. You can also follow him on Twitter here: @richbugger
You might also like…
A Showcase of 50 Amazing Personal Blog Web Designs »
50 Creative Examples of Illustrations in Web Design »
50 Professional Web Design Agency Web Sites »
50 Bright and Vibrant Web Designs – Color Inspiration »
50 Impressive Magazine and Newspaper Styled Web Designs »
50 Inspirational and Fresh Minimally Designed Web Sites »
50 Creative and Inspirational Personal Portfolio Websites »
50 Inspiring Web Application and Service Web Site Designs »
50 Examples of Effective Uses of Typography Within Web Design »
50 Beautifully Crafted Corporate Ecommerce Web Designs »
50 Creative Examples of Vintage and Retro in Web Design »
46 Comments › Leave yours
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- Affiliate-Bookmarks.com/post/
- 50 Examples of Creative 404 – Page Not Found Pages | OnlineSchoolofDesign.com
- Just some twitter tattle and blogs from David Anders » Twitter Updates for 2010-03-11
- 50 Examples of Creative 404 – Page Not Found Pages | CSS Guru How to CSS
- 2a: What I’d do differently with navigation/onsite search « Power for AARP!
- 50 Examples of Creative 404 – Page Not Found Pages | Design Newz
- links for 2010-03-11 | AndySowards.com :: Daily Professional Web Design, Development, Programming Freelancer, Hacks, Downloads, Math and being a Web 2.0 Hipster?
- Help new visitors find what they need faster « AARP application
- 50 Examples of Creative 404 – Page Not Found Pages | Fransnico Susanto
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- Notable Tech Posts – 2010.03.14 | The Life of Lew Ayotte
- 50个新鲜出炉的404网页欣赏 | Booto'Blog
- Best of the Web for the Month of March 2010 | designrfix.com
- Designi1 - 404 – what you should do about that? «
- Και τώρα που τελειώσαμε την σελίδα, να φτιάξουμε και 404 error page;
- 56 pages d’erreur 404 | luLUXE
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10 Mar, 2010
hahaha I love the south park one!
10 Mar, 2010
Awesome collection! Some of them are really humorous.
Maybe you’ll like this one too:
http://www.albergogiardinetto.it/error404.html
10 Mar, 2010
Ah, what you think of our 404 page?
http://www.whitenoisestudios.com/nafing
10 Mar, 2010
Nice collection. I really love some of this ideas! My 404 Error page is here: http://xtraboy.com
It was included in lists on other sites.
10 Mar, 2010
Nice list, the one from apartmenthomeliving (error finding page) is really stiff upper lip, like it, British humour, i like it !
11 Mar, 2010
Nice. I’ve seen the mario one a few times. Mine is creepy i’ve been told. http://nijikokun.com/404/
11 Mar, 2010
You have forgot this one !
http://www.talawa.fr/404
11 Mar, 2010
nice 404 error page
11 Mar, 2010
These are great! I love the grim reaper surrounded by cute kitties on scythe.net.
11 Mar, 2010
i will not mind it at all if your site gave me theses kind of 404 error pages. love to see them :)
11 Mar, 2010
These are great made me chuckle!!
Given me some good ideas.
11 Mar, 2010
Our 404 error page:
http://biko2.com/404.html
:D
11 Mar, 2010
I like Whoops
11 Mar, 2010
Awesome 404 page not found collection! Thanks for sharing.
11 Mar, 2010
Hey, please check out our: http://www.rainfall.ro/404/
Thanks and keep up the good work :)
11 Mar, 2010
check out this one as well…
http://www.broadbandmix.co.uk/404 I like the iconography in this website…
11 Mar, 2010
I always liked this photographer’s baby-photo 404 page: http://momentsfromtheheart.com/smashing
11 Mar, 2010
I like this one: http://www.netprofit.de/404.html
11 Mar, 2010
I love this 404 page : http://www.wibox.fr/404
11 Mar, 2010
This was a great post. I should get to designing a 404Page for my site. :D
11 Mar, 2010
Check out our 404
http://www.11en1.nl/jhdfjsdk
11 Mar, 2010
You missed this one:
http://www.redbilby.com.au/test
12 Mar, 2010
Love it…
It is always something I have wanted to make really creative and stand out, but then again, I don’t want to have a 404 or any other error page in the first place :o)
Nice list, some great examples…
12 Mar, 2010
Hey!
Please check my 404 page – http://dj-case.com/404
12 Mar, 2010
These are all fantastic! I’ve been looking for original ones myself since I first saw the DubLi page, but these have just blown me away!
12 Mar, 2010
nice collection
12 Mar, 2010
Haha! Southpark is cool!!
12 Mar, 2010
I’m pretty proud of mine :)
http://www.untiedmusic.com/notfound.html
Emory Stagmer
Executive Producer, UnTied Music
13 Mar, 2010
I think the most creative 404 ever is still this
http://tech.bluesmoon.info/2010/02/missing-kids-on-your-404-page.html
13 Mar, 2010
southpark is adorable :)) i love those guys.
16 Mar, 2010
Great list!
BTW. This is a brilliant 404:
http://www.silverpistol.com/404
17 Mar, 2010
This will certainly make me think about the 404s on our sites. Something I ALWAYS, ALWAYS forget about (bad I know).
24 Mar, 2010
great article…..
24 Mar, 2010
Nice collection – some great ideas to send to our webguy to create ours!
Great post!
25 Mar, 2010
Great collection!
My 404 error page:
http://www.webgraphicdesigner.me/404.html
:)
30 Mar, 2010
Nice! another 404, our error page :)
http://www.camisetas.info/404.php
30 Mar, 2010
Some classics there. Here’s one that takes 404s a step further: http://www.silverpistol.com/error404
4 Apr, 2010
this is really great collection! good job, thanks!
7 Apr, 2010
Some really good 404 pages in this Article. Here’s my 404 page. http://www.micropressdesign.com/404
9 Apr, 2010
Papo de Bar 404 page is very cool
http://www.papodebar.com/404.php
29 Apr, 2010
Great list. My favourite has to be What the Dickens…?
We went down the elephant in an eggshell route for ours: http://www.ursusmedia.co.uk/404
6 May, 2010
Just added one of our own here:
Doh! 404 ERROR PAGE
27 May, 2010
These are very creative but I won’t spend too much time and energy to make these because I don’t intend to get my website buggy to display these 404 pages.
29 Jun, 2010
Great resource! I really liked the Open Adventure one. I think 404 error pages should do more than say the page doesn’t exit. It may very well be your fault this happened, so why not to apologize to the user with a creative page.
Good stuff!
Here’s mine:
404 Error Page – Cry Baby.
Notice the little joke generator at the bottom of the page. Just something to make you smile even if you lost your way on the site. :)
17 Aug, 2010
Moss by IT Crowd work for online parfumery
http://www.parfemy-elnino.cz/404.html
1 Sep, 2010
Hello!
Your site is very cool.
our web site 404
http://www.unit-mse.co.jp/xxx