Community & Inspiration articles

This month, there’s tons of color, and some elegant transitions. Video is huge this month, with a number of sites opting for video front and center. You’ll also find some delightful animated illustration. Enjoy! Bon Iver Visualizer This impressive site, built with Spotify data, visualizes all of the people currently streaming Bon Iver music, including key details of their location like elevation, and weather conditions. It’s a...

Every month we roundup the best portfolios launched by agencies, freelance designers, and other creative professionals, into one easy-to-digest collection. And now we come to September. The kids are off to school (the poor dears), the teachers are off to school (the poor dears), and you’re free to spend some time thinking about the most important holiday of the year. You’ve got to get ready for it emotionally, spiritually, and financially....

This month’s collection of design trends focuses on a bit of a slow burn – design techniques that appeal to millennials (maybe) and Generation Z. Gen-Zers are those born between 1997 and 2012, meaning part of this generation is in grade school. This generation is impacting design trends already because they are the most digital savvy generation yet. And they start using digital tools at even younger ages, making it no surprise that they...

This month we leap back to the culture of America circa 1969, dive into the oceans with whales, discover multiple approaches to pitching a design agency, get invited to festivals, and shop online the right way. Enjoy! Kilotype Kilotype’s awesome new site shows off its variable fonts with a clever mouse-track — move your cursor around the screen vertically and horizontally to see the full range of each family’s weight and italic. Once...

It’s August, which means the rain is finally slowing down, and I have a chance to get my roof fixed. While I wait here under a literal tarp-fort that I hung up in my office, I thought I might as well compile some of the best recent portfolios for you all to look at. We have a mix of sites this month, both colorful and, shall we say, color-minimalist. We’ve got more than a few specimens of one-column layouts, and some superb CSS Grid-based affairs....

Each of the design trends we are spotting this month have to deal with over-the-top techniques. It’s interesting because these big effects don’t always pop on the radar of what’s trending, but these concepts almost begged to be featured with a large number of projects showcasing these design elements. This type of trend is interested because designers either love them or hate them. Take a look and see if these are concepts you’ll use....

The online community has been around since 2010 and is one of the top platforms where designers can share work, or shots, and get feedback. The invite-only community is a showcase of portfolio projects and personal artwork for digital graphics and user interface design, illustrations, animations, and pretty much any other design work you can think of. Dribbble Pros If you want to be inspired, Dribbble is the place for you. There’s so much...

And now it’s July. I’d just like to tell my American and Canadian friends to hydrate properly, and the hangover should be gone by October, just in time for the sugar crash. While you recover, we’ve got more portfolios. Lots of good, grid-based stuff this month. And lots of dark layouts. It’s like all the color got used up last month or something. Anyway, I hope you like minimalism! Enjoy. Note: I’m judging these sites by how good they...

This month we’re taking a close look at above-the-scroll presentation. It’s the first thing you see, and the first impression a user has when they type in your URL. So, it’s a logical place to spot trends in website design. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. 1. Text That’s Almost Hard to Read With so much focus on readability and accessibility, this trend might be a little surprising. Designers are experimenting with...

This month’s collection is all about being brave. Brave new ways to employ color, brave new ways to navigate UI, brave new ways to think of web sites. Highlights include cool Jazz, exciting new design agencies, and illustration everywhere. Enjoy! West Coast Tasmania This exceptional site for tourism in Western Tasmania gets everything right. The colors and illustrations are tone-perfect, while the enticing photography is alluring...

Hey WDD Readers, it’s June! Depending on where you live, you could either be heading out for a day of Summer fun, or curling up in your home at the bottom of Chile with a hot drink. And if you’re in Chile keeping warm, can I join you? This month, we got lucky enough to have lots and lots of pretty colorful designs in the mix, as well as a bit of classic minimalism and monochromatic goodness. Enjoy. Note: I’m judging these sites by how good they look...

We’re heading into the Summer season where traditionally everyone gets a little more lax about life. Even the website designs seem lighter with more whitespace and simple designs. That translates into a few trending elements as well. We’re seeing plenty of navigation elements with a new twist, circles and perfectly symmetrical grids seem to be making a comeback. Here’s what’s trending in design this month. 1. White Nav on a Color...

Welcome to our monthly roundup of the freshest web designs, released (or rereleased with significant updates) in the last four weeks. This month’s selection eschews popular trends in favor of intelligent design that supports brand identity. As always, scrolling plays a big role, but parallax is less dominant than it normally is. Across the board, designers are opting for the less obvious choice, which gives us a rich variety to indulge...

Hello all, as Justin Timberlake once predicted, it is now May. Now that I’ve subjected you to the latest and greatest in boy band jokes from the ‘90s, let’s check out this month’s portfolios. It should be noted that as I write this, I am working with Internet that I borrowed from my new neighbor (yes, I did ask) and the speed is fairly slow. That’s not a complaint; it’s a warning. It means I’m going to be a lot happier with portfolios...