30 Highly Unusual Web Designs

February 5, 2012 by Daniel Thornton Inspiration, Web Design, Web Inspiration

When it’s working, we call it developing a distinctive style. When it’s not, we call it falling into a rut. Formulaic, trend-based design might help you get the bills paid on time, but it won’t win you any design awards — and let’s face it, what’s most scary about that feeling is the idea that your artistic side might be slipping as you behave more like a manufacturer.

While this is a common feeling shared by all designers at some point in their professional lives, there are plenty of ways to deal with it. One of them is inspiring yourself with the most unusual, out-of-the-box design you can find. Sure, you might not bring some of the crazier stuff back into your work with corporate clients, but it is nice to get inspired again and try a few new — perhaps subtler — additions to your day-to-day work.

Dean Oakley

Creative Capital

Real-Visuals

Roland Olbeter

Narfstuff

Jiri Tvrdek

Paolo Cavanna

Zillu

Pixelcool

Grip Limited

Juan Diego Velasco

Pretty Production

Stripes Design

Marc Anton Dahmen Architecture

Eutem.com

Get London Reading

HTML5 Readiness

CL Designz

HTC Sense

Nick Jones

Digital Podge

Veerle

Dave Werner

Veboo Labs

Julia Noda

David Jiminez

Jeremy Levine Design

31Three

Transmission Inc.

Convax Solutions

From strange color palettes to unconventional layouts, these thirty designs represent everything that’s not done in regular, corporate web design. Some of the elements work, others not so much, but they’re all the work of designers who are thinking outside of the formulas. Forget two column layouts with a four color palette and start playing again.

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http://www.musings.it/ Federica

What about http://centratissimo.musings.it? Unusual enough? And free to download!
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  BOOORRRRINNNGGGGG!!!!!
http://cemahcreative.com/ Sara Stollings

I am a designer first and foremost, so I enjoy the aesthetic of more creative websites. But often with fun designs such as these, the user experience ends up lacking. Sometimes I think designers forget that average people need to navigate their site too. Designers often design for other designers, and forget the clients needs. With that being said I do enjoy these sites. It is an interesting collection.

-Sara Stollings
cemahcreative.com
http://twitter.com/iamcreative_ Aaron Summers

WOW… Grip Limited!!

I think is amazingly clever and a really unique single page website.
http://www.oldworldcreative.com Evan Skuthorpe

Some very creative web designs. Nice too see.
Kat Midle

These are great designs. Really unusual and artsy.
http://www.sdwhaven.com/ Stacy David Wallingford

These are some sweet web designs, but I’m glad most websites aren’t this creative. A lot is going on in most of these.
http://www.yourmessageconsultant.com/ Michele

I agree with Sara. Many of the best designs from an aesthetic point of view verge on being totally un-navigatable or take a long time to load on even the fastest of connections. That said, if I was going to invest in professional web design services, I would want someone who has a unique site and a portfolio that is not full of mind-numbingly similar sites.
http://www.webtemplates-creare.com/ Paul Weston

I love articles like this one. This is
a great collection of sites which has got me thinking about what I
can create for my clients. Obviously we have to keep in mind what the
site you are designing is for but I am always trying to push my
designs to make them stand out. This collection has inspired me and
will act as a constant resource for my future projects and what I can
create for my clients.
Rom Dechamps

I agree with those who said that design are beautiful and very impressive but not that easy for the user. Also, most of them (or all of them) are made in Flash : I think that we have to forget this technology as far as the not developping anymore and it cannot be read on phones, tablet etc. !