Whether you’re a new entrepreneur looking to create your first website or a seasoned web designer with tens of sites under your belt, you’re almost always going to want some inspiration to kick start your project. Sure, there are days when ideas will spark instantly, but at other times, they can take forever to strike.
If you’re looking for some web design ideas to inspire you during those creative dry spells, you’re in the luck today. In this post, we examine seven popular brands where we go into detail about various aspects of their designs that help them stand out. Also, we highly recommend you to check out a recent post that MangoMatter Media did on starting a website from scratch for additional web design ideas.
Evernote
If you haven’t heard or used Evernote before, this is an innovative app that allows you to take notes, annotate images, bookmark your favorite articles online, and even share ideas with others. The software company whose app can be downloaded on both desktop and mobile devices has a fantastic web interface.
For starters, its homepage is quite minimalistic and features the brand’s green and black color scheme. What’s more, the company has tried to highlight the key purpose of its site which is to drive users to download the app. You can also choose to sign in right on their site, which is another plus for those that would like to access their accounts from anywhere using any device.
Salesforce
When it comes to customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for established businesses and enterprises, only a few brands can beat Salesforce. This suite serves, from its cloud servers, quite a good number of business applications that your business needs. As a result, you’re able to focus your energies on important tasks like customer acquisition, lead generation, and brand promotion.
Like most reputable brands, Salesforce has tried to keep its website design neat and simple while accenting its calls-to-action. The company’s ultimate goal is clearly to get visitors to start their free trial or watch demos. There’s quite a good balance of different colors but blue and green are the most conspicuous throughout the site.
Dropbox
Dropbox is a household name in the cloud storage solutions space for small and medium-sized businesses and individuals. The company has done exemplary well with its referral model of marketing, and now its design is also something worth a mention.
To begin with, the company’s homepage features flexible visuals that fit perfectly on different devices including mobile. Among them is a couple of highlighted CTAs that are geared towards driving visitors to download the free or paid version of this app.
However, the most striking part of the page is how Dropbox manages to tailor experiences across different devices. For example, the mobile site has a different font color from that of its desktop counterpart. Also, you’ll find a small arrow that directs you to scroll down while on desktop; the same is absent on the mobile site.
Slack
Slack is a popular collaboration tool that supports team messaging and file sharing. The company’s homepage features unique illustrations and custom graphics you won’t see anywhere else on the web. It’s also quite minimalistic with its goal clearly being to get visitors to create new accounts or sign in to existing ones. The inventively done tagline “Where Work Happens” is also a web element worth mentioning.
FindLaw
This popular site serves two main purposes – to connect users to good lawyers in their localities and to educate visitors about the law. Normally, it would be a tough task trying to balance these two purposes given that the target demographics are different. But FindLaw does this job quite commendably.
For starters, it has a clear CTA at the central part of the homepage that encourages visitors to find a lawyer near them. On the other hand, those seeking educational information can use the navigation menu at the top part of the site to access it.
Shopify
If you want to set up an eCommerce store today, chances are high that you’ll use Shopify for your development work. One thing we loved about the web design of this company is how it manages to make user experience consistent across different devices.
Text color, background, illustrations, and call-to-action buttons are the same both on the desktop and mobile versions of its site. The only difference you’ll notice is the position of CTAs and illustrations. On the desktop site, both can be found on the right part of the screen while they appear beneath the web copy on its mobile site.
Skype
It would be safe to say that the popularity and success of Skype are in part contributed by the effective design of its site. The company’s homepage features a blue and white theme with eye-catching CTA buttons that call for visitors to chat, call, and collaborate using this app. The copy used on the site also helps to positively impact the brand’s bottom line by using emotional-triggering terms like “millions” to show how popular this service is.
Which other website(s) do you visit when looking for inspiration on web design? We’d love to hear your feedback.