Web Design Inspiration : Where To Look For Ideas If You Are Stuck?

It’s fun and creative! But sometimes, website designing can be incredibly frustrating. Whether you are a logo maker or a website developer, a photographer or an artist, sometimes the design world refuses to cooperate, and you find yourself staring at a blank screen for hours and hour. At such points, it doesn’t matter how creative and/or experienced you are.

We understand you – and we know exactly how it feels. So, in this article, we have compiled a comprehensive answer to the ultimate question: “Where to look for ideas if you are stuck with your website design?”

Let’s start by talking about some of the most popular, creative websites that you can consult for design inspiration whenever you hit a roadblock.

6 Websites To Generate New Website Design Ideas

01. Behance

Behance is a networking platform that allows designers to showcase their work. It features more than just web designs; but also offers graphic designs, photography pages, typography options, drawings, and much more.

Explore around this platform and get inspiration from the latest work of the best designers from all around the globe. Adobe family, one of the most popular graphic design tools, owns this platform.

Behance is one of the largest active, creative communities that serve globally. Not only does it offer detailed filtering options, but it also has the latest design trends up and available.

02. Pinterest

As we all know, Pinterest is one of the biggest video and image-based platforms where people discover new ideas every day. You can discover a wide range of content and interact with other users here.

This platform is known to bring out your inner artist. But it is much more than that; as a website designer, you’ll find Pinterest as a great source to collect creative and inspirational web page designs. It is a hub of distributed content across the internet.

You will find it all on Pinterest, from design inspiration to food recipes. So why not search and “pin” your favorite website designs and draw out the elements that attract you.

03. Dribbble

Just like Behance, Dribbble is a networking platform. The only difference is that Dribbble is only for graphic designs, so portfolios for drawings and photography are not featured here. It has a diverse variety of graphic designs available across many fields that can help you get creative.

On Dribble, designers publish their work, but there is a specialty; it is a semi-open network which means that you need to be invited to join the network.

Now what makes Dribbble the best option to search for web design inspiration is that it has one of the largest showcases of design available. With 150,000+ designs, illustrations, and animations, this platform is sure to have something that fits your style like a glove.

04. Awwwards

It is the singular most popular competition body that awards the best of the best talent in the website design and development industry. Due to their respected award system, this website receives the highest quality design submissions.

If you are looking for inspiration to move forward with your website work, this site will definitely give you the best quality work. The best part is that this site adds pages detailing different elements used in the particular website. So you can break down your research and nit-pick the ideas you like.

05. Template Monster

We know a theme shop may not be the first place you think of going to when looking for creative design inspiration. Because, obviously, themed designs are much more generic. But, Template Monster is quite effective because the themes available here have a really good architectural angle.

When it comes to designing your website, you can take structural design inspiration from the themes available here. With over 20k+ themes in the inventory, this website has a collection of some of the best designs that are definitely well-worth exploring.

06. Instagram

A social media platform in the mix? Yes! Here’s why Instagram has made it to the list:

The internet has website design inspirations coming from every direction, and there is no shortage of places to get creative ideas. But this image-based platform has everything available in one place.

With 500+ million active daily users, Instagram is a favorite among many creative developers and artists who draw inspiration from each other. This visual smorgasbord is excellent to draw inspiration from. You can simply search for #websitedesign, and voila, you get a million relevant options!

The best part about Instagram? You will find inspirational designs and the workflow and design process of top UX designers! This means you can get more and more ideas for every step of your website design journey!

All these websites are fantastic! But what else can you do to get out of the sticky designer’s block?

Here Are Some Expert Tactics To Get You Out Of The Situation:

07 Web Design Tactics To Help You If You’re Stuck

01. Start Simple

When your design is messed up, it is time to go back to the basics: pure black and white, one font, simple text. Get rid of all the color and fancy stuff for a while and focus on the content.

Eliminating all the graphics and content can help you a lot at times. The content can wait. Content comes in much later, after all. Even research confirms that 66% of people prefer to look at the website’s design before consuming the content.

So start simple and start small. You can work your way up by putting in just the minimum elements and playing around with size as well as layout possibilities. After every section is completed, ask yourself if it needs anything else, and move forward according to that.

02. Automate Your Work Process

To speed up your project development, look for ways to automate the stages. For example, you can create mood boards for your website design through graphic design tools like Canva or Procreate and define the direction of your project.

Similarly, you can create stellar email campaigns through marketing tools, such as SaaS email marketing, and grow your own revenue. And you can use web development tools, like Sketch and Adobe XD, to actually develop your website in a faster manner.

Thanks to this era of technology, you will find relevant tools to help you in pretty much every phase. The goal is to be able to spend as much time as needed on the creative thinking process while the implementation part is optimized for you.

03. Design From Inside Out

You know how to create a personal website, and you may have done it a hundred times before. But when you hit a sticky spot, it is time to reroute your design tactics, and the first one is to start designing from the inside out.

Mostly, designers start by working on the header or putting their entire focus on how the header should look. But guess what? The inside of the body of the page is what takes most of the attention.

When it comes to website designing, the body of the website somehow becomes the primary focus and the header takes the back seat. So leave the header for a while and work on body elements. You’d be surprised at how easier it becomes to design the page once you have the body figured out.

Remember website headers are strategically vital. Starting with the website body does not mean ignoring or focusing less on the website header. Once the website’s main content is ready, design your header with clear elements and make sure it aligns with your branding.

04. Look For Inspiration In Offline World

If you are in a design-related field, you must have gone through tons of design showcasing websites and galleries. Undoubtedly, they are an excellent source of inspiration.

But sometimes, offline media can be more refreshing. So, don’t confine yourself to online sources; take a break from your electronic devices and look around yourself.

Open up a magazine or a newspaper, or check out a TV ad. You will see that a lot of elements between website design and these media are actually similar. They are all just means of captivating the audience, after all! For example, you can look at the typography, color palette, element placement, CTA style, and/or anything applicable to your design.

The point is that you can get many inspirational ideas from the traditional media as well. So put that laptop away, get in your car. Drive around town for a bit. Who knows, maybe you’ll find some web design inspiration from one of the billboards!

05. Focus On The Structure

Concentrating on your website’s structure first will help you get a bird’s eye view of the complete project. You can sketch out the design of your website and decide which elements are to be placed where. A great exercise can also be to add shades of grey and establish a sort of visual hierarchy that you can follow.

Remember, 75% of website credibility is associated with its design. So it is in your hands to build a credible image of your client’s business.

As a designer, you have to make sure your website’s structure aligns with the business owner’s goals. Not only that, you have to keep users’ experience as well as the search engine ranking in mind.

So, when creating the website structure, you need to think about the visitors’ view and how they will navigate through the content.

06. Follow The Web Standards

Most importantly, stick with the website standards. You should know how to build a website, and you may have many innovative options to execute your ideas. It is great to be creative but set some boundaries while designing a website.

Here’s why: your visitors are used to certain website elements and tropes. Breaking them beyond a certain extent can confuse your audience and probably turn them off too.

So, it is essential to follow the web standards like having consistent branding across all website pages or keeping the search feature in the header – and social media icons in the footer.

07. Emphasize On The Call-to-Action Buttons

It is crucial to direct everything towards the CTA. When you know the objective of your website, streamline your design to focus solely on that purpose. Simplify your design and focus on the CTA by eliminating muddy jargon, extra menu items, and sidebars.

While it may seem obvious, designers often forget an important factor; the CTA should be easy to see as well as understand. You can set it apart by adding spaces and making it large.

Very much like how you play around with shapes and styles when it comes to creating a logo, this is the place where you can experiment with colors as well. So, test a range of color options to figure out what button shade will stand out amidst the other design elements of your website.

Time To Overcome The Designer’s Block

A new design project is always exciting because it allows you to get those creative juices flowing again! But once you start working full-time as a designer, it is quite natural to get stuck in a rut from time to time…, and it is terrible because, in this saturated market, you need to prove your expertise and point-of-difference with every single project.

If you have hit a snag in your design journey, don’t worry; know that you are not alone in this situation. To help you out, we have compiled a list of some of the best websites from where you can gain inspiration. Also, try some of the tactics shared above to get out of the slump. We are sure these will help you out! Do you have any tools, tips, or creative ideas on how to create a personal website that is unique and innovative? Please share with us in the comment section below.