125+ Unconventional Sources of Web Design Inspiration

A collection of my favourite inspirational sources & Styles

As a web designer I’m always looking for ways to get inspired when working on new projects. Usually this means searching the various web design galleries for some inspirational web designs. However, recently I’ve found inspiration from some quite unusual sources. Take a look at this variety of inspirational work, and you might find that it can help motivate and inspire you on your next project.

The basic point of this post is to show you that you don’t have to rely on the CSS Galleries to inspire you, there is a lot of creative work out there in various other mediums that will help get you in a creative mood.

This post has quite a lot of images so please be patient while the images load, I assure you they are worth the wait.

Amazing Matte Paintings

Matte paintings are used to enhance movie sets, by either adding to, or creating an extensive backdrop. Nowadays all of this work is made digitally using a Graphics Tablet, and such work can be loaded into a 3D program to create a 3D environment. The level of detail here is amazing, some very realistic work and very visually appealing.

David Edwards Matte Painter & Visual Effects artist

Hatch Designs: Visual Effects

Andreas Rocha Digital Matte Painter

Tiberius Viris: Matte Painter & Concept Artist

Digital Paintings

Digital painting is becoming a hugely popular art form, and some of the work out there is of a very high standard. Digital Painting is similar to traditional painting in many ways, the main difference being (obviously) that the painting is done on a computer using a graphics tablet and a computer software, this means the artist has the advantage of using effects, filters and layers to enhance the artwork. For more work like this check out 46 Inspiring Digital Paintings from Outlaw Design Blog.

Hethe Srodawa

This concept artist works for Rockstar games, he has a lot of interesting pieces of work in his portfolio, I particularly like the digital concept paintings the most. Check out the portfolio.

Death Blow (Transformers Fan art)

This piece I find really captures the action of the movie, and the scene. There is a full article written by the creator of this art about the concept & progression. It’s an interesting read.

Radojavor

I Some really stunning work from Radojavor, Be sure to check the DeviantArt profile.

Motion Graphics / Visual Effects

In today’s world of Television, films and online video the need for impressive visual effects has become important for any video production, here are a few examples of some truly inspirational motion graphics/visual effects work. You can see how a great effects and talent can really help improve a video and make it have much more of a lasting impression.

Inspirational Graphic Design

Graphic design is probably the closest link to Web design that I have featured, it’s not uncommon for Web Designers to also do Graphic Design work. So although this wouldn’t really class as an “unconventional” source of Web Design inspiration, it is a little different from the CSS Web Galleries we’re all becoming used to these days. There’s so many great graphic designers out there that I’ve barely touched the surface, but hopefully in the near future I’ll being you more and more examples like these.

Maciej Mizer aka *m0sk

This guy’s work is extremely nice to look at, love the colours, effects and the overall mood, you can check out his portfolio for more; http://www.mosk.pl - Or you can click the images below to get to his DeviantArt Page.

Williams Design Studios

This amazing digital artist has a lot of very high grade work. The attention to detail is amazing and really adds to the work. Some very strong stuff in his portfolio, very much worth exploring.

Alex Cherry

I really like to see a grunge/dirty styles pulled off digitally very nicely. These are some great examples of organic looking digital graphic design from Alex Cherry from Of Sound and Vision.

Atheneum

A friend of mine on flickr. Atheneum’s own flickr page only has a few pieces, but I think she has a great style and a lot of potential, I predict great things from her.

Andrew Greig

A very interesting and varied portfolio, very nice style.

Jonathan Wong

Here is some amazing artwork from Jonathan Wong. Some truly beautiful work to feast your eyes on.

Kjegwan Leihitu

Kjegwan Leihitu has a very clean crisp style, his work looks amazing & the added effects look very well polished.

Exceptional 3D Art

Here is some more excellent 3D work, in this collection you get to see 22 of the Most Striking 3D Robots ever. It’s a great collection, and the level of work & detail is something to aspire to, enough to inspire anyone interested in design. The best places to find the best 3D Work/Articles would have to be CGSociety and Highend3D. 3D is an art form which takes a lot of talent and patience, the ability

Clever Advertising

It’s refreshing to find that there is some creativity in the world of advertising. Far too often ads are made cheaply and to a poor standard, here are a few examples of advertising done correctly.

Creative Typography

An important part of web design is Typography, so again not really “unconventional” however, here are a few of my favourite examples of type. I love seeing creative ways of making text look more interesting, and I continue to be amazed by the open-mindedness that now surrounds typography, allowing a much more creative attitude to be taken when dealing with type.

Motion Typography

Generally speech taken from movies or famous speeches, and the text transformed into motion graphics. There is some strong language in most of these. I had to include these as I think they’re a great way of visualising spoken words.

Nature

My original idea was to have a Photography section, but then I thought no… You should be out there yourself seeing the world rather than seeing pictures of it. So my advice to you is to go outside right now and find some inspiration. Until then, here’s some pictures of nature, she’s beautiful isn’t she?

Architecture

Art on a grand scale, architecture really is (in my opinion) one of the most creative forms of art out there. You not only have to think of something which looks nice, but functional and has a purpose. These are a few examples of some excellent designs.

Vinyl / CD Covers

Vinyl covers are a great way to further extend the feelings of the music and can be a great addition to the experience of listening to music. In a digital age, artwork remains one of the few reasons I would choose a CD album over a mp3 download.

Detailed Vector & Vexel Art

Many of you will probably be aware of the term Vector, but Vexel is not so commonly known. It is a similar art technique, and the name in fact comes from the words Vector and Pixel. To find out more about the difference try Vexel.net.

Vexel Art

Vector Art

Remember that these images are not Photographs but are in fact just a collection of shapes and colours. The realism here is immense, it’s hard to get your head around on some of these. There are some more creative examples of vector art over at Smashing Magazine.

Graffiti Art

Graffiti, socially unacceptable, but visually amazing. Although its illegal, there is some graffiti out there which does look amazing, here are some exceptional pieces of work, not all of which are painted on the street, some are painted in galleries or exhibitions, some are even digitally painted, but the style & the talent is still there there. I must admit that this is one of my favourite art styles ever.

Banksy - Amazing UK Graffiti artist, clever work

Skelewags Cartoon Graffiti

What I like most about this collection is how the artist has used the natural decay of the surrounding area and placed the characters around them.

Other Cool Graffiti

Chalk Drawings

I personally think that these street chalk drawings are some of the best things I’ve ever seen, there’s so much creativity involved here and some of the ideas are just genius. The drawings are done in a way so that from a certain angle (where the camera is) the images appear to be part of the floor, its a very clever use of perspective. From any other angle though the drawings wouldn’t be recognisable, even to the artist from where he is drawing it.

Julian Beever - Street Chalk Artist UK

Hopefully this has shown you that there are other ways of inspiring yourself, both on the web and offline. If you have any suggestions of other things which could be included, be sure to share them.

Written by liam on July 21, 2008

Tags: Collection, Graphic Design, Inspiration, Typography, Web Design

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65 Comments

• Chris Spooner said:

  That’s one kick ass roundup! Thanks for putting the time into pulling it all together.

  Bookmarked.

• liam said:

  Thanks Chris, appreciate the comment.

  I realise it’s very large, but it’s going to serve as a “go-to place” for myself more than anything, so when I’m feeling a little drained for creativity I’ll be coming here, so I wanted to include a lot so that each time I come back it still feels fresh.

• Andrew said:

  Wow! That’s quite a list! Thanks for sharing.

• Victor said:

  Spectacular collection It will take me an entire evening to go through these. Not just going into my del.icio.us…will sift through it all. I’ve been trying to light a fire under my seat for a while, this ought to help. Portfolio is feeling stale and have been paralyzed by lord knows what. Sure we all know the feeling. Been wanting to do so many things, but can’t quite find my way or make the time. Thanks so much, this will do good to more than you know.

  V

• Jon Phillips said:

  Woah! now seriously that must have taken a long time to compile! Really an inspiring post! Thanks for putting this together Liam!

• liam said:

  Thanks guys, I’ve had this post brewing for a while, wasn’t really sure whether to release it or not, mainly because of it’s size and I didn’t think people would see the same usefulness in it as I did, but it seems to have been well received - So Thank you for putting my worries to rest

• Felix Widjaja said:

  Thanks for compiling this.
  I really dig the Chalk Drawings.

  My latest post: Website Design is not Graphic Design

• liam said:

  @Felix, Yeah I love those chalk drawings, Such a brilliant Idea, I’d say they probably define creativity.

• adelle said:

  Wow, thanks Liam-this was dugg and added to delicous! Great post and I’m glad you did this for yourself It will come in handy for me!

• Jacob Share said:

  Beautiful. Stunning. Inspiring.

  Amazing compilation, there’s so much that’s good here, I could have spent another half-hour browsing again.

  Well done Liam!

• Cobus Bester said:

  Amazing collection! Definitely left me inspired

  I like your blog and what you guys are doing. All round quality.

  Keep it up

  My latest post: Inspired: Scott Hansen | ISO50

• liam said:

  @Adelle Thanks for sharing & glad it will come in use.

  @Jason Yeah Should certainly keep a few people busy for a while for sure

  @Cobus Thanks for the encouragement and taking the time to comment, its the feedback & comments which really make it worth-while. Cheers

• John Campbell said:

  Wow! That is an amazing round up, absolutely awesome! Thanks for taking the time to keep making such quality post to share with the rest of us.

  - John

  My latest post: 40+ Extremely Beautiful FONTS Hand-picked from deviantART

• David Airey said:

  Hi Liam,

  I can’t imagine how long it must’ve taken to compile this, but thanks! I enjoyed viewing the images – the vast majority of which I hadn’t seen before.

  All the best.

  My latest post: Logo design and card for Hilcon

• liam said:

  @John You’re too kind Thanks! Glad you enjoyed.

  @David It’s one of those things that I just added to now and then, I don’t think I could have done it in one sitting. Thanks for your comment, glad you enjoyed. Hope to see you around

• David Airey said:

  I know the type. There are currently around 50 draft posts floating around my WordPress admin, and I don’t see them getting published anytime soon!

  My latest post: Logo design and card for Hilcon

• liam said:

  Yeah exactly, my only worry is the longer I left this post brewing the more and more of them I saw being featured in blog posts, whereas at the time it felt quite new and fresh a lot of these images have already done the rounds by now, still as a whole I’m glad people are appreciative of the collection.

• 125 Unconventional Sources of Web Design Inspiration | WhiteSandsDigital.com said:

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• neil said:

  great images, hard to believe some of those arent real!

  My latest post: New website design!

• SaLvI said:

  Just amazing!….very inspirational.

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• Julius said:

  This collection is incredible!

  Congratulation!

  My latest post: Applicazioni iPhone Gratis: I Migliori 5 Siti dove scaricarle!

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• Spedra said:

  the free air guitar in ingenious

  spedra

  http://www.spedra.com

  My latest post: Motorola rokr E8

• Graphic Design Services said:

  All images were nice. We can’t imagine some paintings in Amazing Matte Paintings

  Parthipan
  http://www.pixint.com

• Freelance Graphic Designers said:

  the century travel image is amazing.

  http://www.thewebdesignmarket.com

• Andy said:

  Truly great list. Keep up the good work.

• Fox said:

  Awesome
  I like some if them really.

• cecilia said:

  allworks are awesome!!!!! i’m a graphic designer and i’m trully in shok, its really gret to know works so cool!!!

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• Thomas said:

  Great post Liam, very useful. I love the typography section

• Sheena said:

  Wow! I have actually seen some of the same kinds of chalk drawings being done (none of those specific ones though) You’d be amazed how many people stand in the street looking down into fake holes, etc.

  Great to browse through when I’m tired of looking at the same old same old.

• Marcos Morales said:

  Cool stuff, i really liked it. Thanks for posting it.

  My latest post:

• Janko said:

  I thought I will say something clever, but let me just say: Fantastic!!!

  My latest post: Continuous scrolling pattern using JavaScript and ASP.NET

• TURKIYE'nin ilham kayna?? said:

  Bu resimleri begenmedinm 125 resinde BERBAT

• Youri said:

  Damn Liam, how long did it take you to prepare this post? But seriously, some very inspiring imagery.

  My latest post: Artwork creation process by Matthias Bäuerle

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• liam said:

  @Youri - Hard to say how long I spent, its just something I put together in my spare time during the time before our launch, so about a month between start and finish, but like i say it was just something I added to every now and then, I’d say a good few hours in total

  Thank you to everyone else for the comments, glad you all enjoyed it and hopefully it gives you a glimpse into the kind of things to expect from our blog from now on

• punk said:

  wow! so fresh! thanks for sharing

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• Max | Design Shard said:

  i find the graphic design section very inspirational and clean , typography is a favourite of mine and i love the colours that are used in the paintings very cool colour palets.

  good inspiration thanks

• liam said:

  Hey Max, Glad you found it enjoyable - Thanks for commenting

• todayinart.com said:

  Really awesome stuff! I especially dig the architecture images.

  My latest post: Fail Whale - by Yiying Lu

• David Leggett said:

  Wow, this is such a wonderful post liam. Those paintings by David Edwards are absolutely breathtaking. Very inspiring indeed.

  Thanks!

  My latest post: T9 Roundup (7/26/08)

• liam said:

  @David, yeah they’re my favourites too! Just love that Big Ben one, thanks for the comment

  @todayinart, the architecture stuff I find particularly amazing because it not only has to look great, but it has a purpose and a function. Thanks for taking the time to post a reply!

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• Bimal said:

  Outstanding. Thank you! Great Collection.

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• Mig Reyes said:

  Hey, thanks for posting some of the work my room mate and I did. (The Motion-Type video, Lions Roar.) Truly honored to be featured, love your blog!

• liam said:

  @Mig Reyes, Thanks for taking the time to comment & the honour is all mine. I loved the video, and the music is amazing. Any plans to make similar videos?

• Mig Reyes said:

  Always thinking about more videos! Life is just all too busy. But after a years+ worth of time, I’m thinking our type+motion skills got a bit better, so hopefully whatever new video we crank on will live up to the expectations.

  Cheers, rockin’ blog once again!

• Abhisek said:

  Awesome!

• graham said:

  great collection, I really liked the chalk stuff..

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• jon d. said:

  all i have to say is wow.. i’m inspired for sure!

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