According to Forbes Advisor Australia, 88% of online users won’t return to a website after a bad experience—a clear sign that small businesses in Australia need to invest in their online store. If you want to avoid losing potential customers, tapping into expert-recommended sources of design inspiration is key. These trusted sites offer valuable insights, creative ideas, and the latest trends, ensuring your website leaves a lasting impression. Want to know where the pros go for inspiration? Keep reading to discover the top resources that can help you elevate your website’s design and keep your visitors coming back.
Table of Contents
Top 14 Web Design Inspirations Sources
Creating a visually stunning and user-friendly website is essential for small businesses looking to make a strong online presence. With countless design possibilities out there, finding the right inspiration can be overwhelming. To help you navigate this challenge, we’ve gathered the top 15 web design inspiration sources that are highly regarded by industry experts. These trusted platforms offer a wealth of creative ideas, the latest design trends, and insights from seasoned professionals, empowering you to craft a website that captivates your audience and sets your business apart.
#1 Best Website Gallery
Best Website Gallery (BWG) is a top-tier source for web design inspiration curated by designer and developer David Hellmann since 2008. What began as a personal collection of bookmarks has evolved into a highly respected gallery featuring over 2,000 premium websites around the globe. David has created a systematic and comprehensive tagging system based on Style, CMS, Framework, Service, etc., making it easy for small business owners to find inspirations that share similarities with their own website model.
BWG is an excellent resource for those seeking inspiration for portfolio websites, as it provides a wealth of examples from top designers. It’s also ideal for agency websites, offering insights into the high-calibre creativity often found in these environments. One of the unique aspects of BWG is its ability to filter by colour, making it easy to discover colour palettes that align with your brand’s identity.
Additionally, BWG saves time with its multiple page screenshot feature. Instead of navigating through live sites, users can view snapshots of various pages—such as About, Shop, or Services—on a single page. This feature is invaluable for those needing inspiration beyond the homepage. With its high-quality curation and user-friendly features, Best Website Gallery is a trusted source for any small business owner looking to elevate their web design.
#2 Commerce Cream
Commerce Cream is a go-to resource for anyone seeking top-notch e-commerce web design inspiration, particularly for Shopify-based stores. The platform is dedicated to showcasing the best-looking online stores, with each featured website carefully vetted to ensure only the highest quality designs make the cut. This guarantees that small business owners are viewing the crème de la crème of e-commerce sites, making it easier to find designs that resonate with their brand’s aesthetic.
One of Commerce Cream’s standout features is its focus on showcasing the design agencies behind each site. This allows users to not only explore exceptional e-commerce designs but also dive deeper into the portfolios of some of the best web design agencies in the industry. Whether you’re drawn to bold, modern designs or minimalist styles, Commerce Cream offers a curated selection of websites that embody the latest trends in e-commerce.
For small business owners looking to create or revamp their online store, Commerce Cream is an invaluable resource. It offers niche-specific inspiration that can help you craft a visually appealing and effective e-commerce site, while also introducing you to the creative minds behind these top-tier designs.
#3 Behance
Behance, part of the Adobe family, is a premier platform for discovering top-tier web design inspiration from a vast and diverse creative community. As one of the largest and most active networks for showcasing creative work, Behance offers an unparalleled selection of web design projects that cater to various styles and industries.
The platform’s web design discovery page is a powerful tool for finding inspiration, thanks to its detailed filtering options. Users can sort designs by timeframes, popularity, and location, allowing for targeted searches such as “most appreciated web designs from the past month in Melbourne.” This feature not only highlights the breadth of global talent but also allows you to view cutting-edge designs tailored to your specific interests.
One standout feature of Behance is its ability to filter results by the tools used in the design process. This is particularly useful for small business owners who want to explore what can be achieved with specific design software or frameworks, such as Webflow or Adobe XD. By showcasing the tools behind the designs, Behance provides valuable insights into the capabilities of different platforms.
With its community-curated approach, Behance ensures that you see the best of the best in web design, making it an invaluable resource for finding high-quality inspiration and discovering new trends. Whether you’re looking for bold new aesthetics or practical design solutions, Behance’s extensive and expertly curated content is sure to help elevate your website design.
#4 Awwwards
Awwwards is a leading platform for discovering award-winning website designs, showcasing the work of the world’s top web designers and developers. What makes Awwwards highly regarded by professionals is its detailed and transparent scoring system. Each category is clearly explained and proportioned reasonably. Additionally, the jury members who evaluate each website are disclosed along with their background information, which enhances the credibility and professionalism of the platform.
Awwwards offers thousands of websites across various fields, but how can small and medium-sized businesses make the most of this platform? Utilise the detailed filtering system by category, country, technology, etc. Whether you’re looking to build a sleek, user-friendly site or want to incorporate creative elements into your design, Awwwards provides a wealth of inspiration backed by expert validation.
In addition to its comprehensive rating system, Awwwards also offers extensive tagging options that allow you to filter websites by specific elements such as frameworks, platforms, dominant colours, and industry verticals. This makes it easier to find designs that align with your business’s needs and aesthetic preferences. By exploring the top-tier designs featured on Awwwards, small business owners can gain valuable insights and ideas to help elevate their own websites, ensuring they stand out in a competitive online landscape.
Award-winning websites in 2023 & 2024
- IKEA Business Network – Honourable Mention – Aug 6, 2024
IKEA’s award-winning website for businesses is a prime example of how design can effectively communicate a brand’s core values while optimising user experience. Targeting companies in need of office furnishings, the site offers an interactive 2D blueprint design, making it user-friendly and highly engaging. The card-based layout is visually appealing and allows for seamless navigation, reflecting IKEA’s commitment to simplicity and innovation. The content is carefully aligned with IKEA’s core values, such as caring for people and the planet, promoting simplicity, and leading by example. This approach not only enhances the user experience but also reinforces IKEA’s brand story, making it a standout in web design for 2024.
- Heva Health – Site of the Day – Jul 26, 2024
Heva Health’s award-winning website exemplifies how data can be seamlessly integrated into a user-friendly design without losing engagement. As a wellness platform offering solutions like weight loss and sexual health, Heva Health uses data not just as an informational tool but as a core element of the user experience. The design skillfully weaves data into the user flow, ensuring that the content remains persuasive and relevant to the solutions provided. This approach aligns perfectly with their tagline “Data-into-action,” creating a compelling and effective web experience that stands out in the wellness industry for 2023 and 2024.
- Luision V3 – Site of the Day – Oct 2, 2023
Luision V3, a creative production studio, has gained recognition in 2023 and 2024 for its bold and punchy web design that truly sets it apart. The website’s standout feature is its interactive 3D elements, which engage users as they navigate through the site, reflecting the studio’s mission to help brands create digital experiences that resonate with their audience. Complemented by smooth scroll animations, the site’s design and usability have been rated highly by experts at Awwwards, making it a must-explore destination for anyone seeking inspiration in cutting-edge digital creativity.
#5 CSS Nectar
CSS Nectar prides itself on being one of the top websites offering the most diverse website inspiration. The websites featured on CSS Nectar have undergone rigorous screening by the team. First, to submit a website to the platform, owners must pay a small fee. This serves as the first quality filter, ensuring that only those who are truly confident in their product will register for evaluation. Next, the registered websites are meticulously reviewed by a group of experts with many years of experience in design. Finally, only the websites that truly stand out or have distinctive features compared to others are featured on CSS Nectar.
For those looking to find inspiration tailored to specific needs, CSS Nectar offers detailed filtering options, allowing users to browse websites by category, feature, colour, and even country. This makes it easy to find designs that align with your brand’s style or the particular functionality you’re aiming to achieve.
The expert factor on CSS Nectar is enhanced by the platform’s user-generated rating system. Each featured website is scored based on design, coding, and creativity, with ratings provided by a broad community of users. This public rating system adds an additional layer of credibility, as the scores reflect the collective judgement of both design professionals and enthusiasts alike.
For small business owners, CSS Nectar is an invaluable resource, offering a carefully curated selection of high-quality, innovative web designs. The triple-vetting process ensures that the inspiration you draw from the platform is not only visually compelling but also functionally robust and creatively executed.
#6 Brutalist Websites
Brutalist Websites is not a common go-to for design inspiration due to its bold and unconventional web designs. If you want to emphasise your brand’s personality, you might find these designs intriguing. However, it’s important to note that not every brand can successfully adopt such avant-garde designs. So, what can small and medium-sized businesses learn from here? You can study how these websites capture and direct user attention to various elements, typography, and more, and then refine and apply those techniques to your own website.
The standout feature of Brutalist Websites is its dedication to showcasing designs that challenge the status quo. Here, you’ll find broken grids, oversized headlines, and unconventional scroll effects that prioritise making a statement over guiding user journeys. For small business owners eager to inject creativity into their digital presence, this platform provides a wealth of unpolished yet captivating examples that defy conventional expectations, offering inspiration to think outside the box.
#7 Siteinspire
Siteinspire is an exceptional resource for small business owners seeking web design inspiration, offering a carefully curated selection of websites. Its standout feature is the sophisticated tagging and filtering system, which allows users to refine their searches by style, type, subject, and platform. This makes it easy to find design ideas that align closely with your business’s niche or aesthetic, whether you’re in photography, retail, or any other industry.
Curated by Daniel Howells of Howells Studio, Siteinspire ensures that every featured website meets high design standards, providing inspiration that is both creative and commercially viable. For busy small business owners, the platform’s intuitive interface and the ability to create collections of favourite designs make it a time-efficient tool for planning or refreshing a website. With Siteinspire, you can trust that you’re accessing some of the best web design examples tailored to your specific needs.
#8 Dribbble
Not simply for web design, Dribbble is a huge collection of designs from many various fields. This platform’s most notable feature is its wide range of excellent designs, which have been carefully chosen based on originality, usefulness, and mobile friendliness. This gives you the freedom to select the ideal inspiration source. This is a free approach for small businesses to get premium design concepts. On Dribbble, you may go through case studies that highlight various topics like typography, branding, animation, and user experience.
What sets Dribbble apart is its community-centric approach. The platform not only serves as a showcase for design work but also fosters professional growth by connecting designers with potential clients. This focus on quality and community ensures that the designs featured on Dribbble are both visually compelling and professionally polished. Whether you’re searching for inspiration in web design or exploring adjacent fields like graphic design or animation, Dribbble offers a rich tapestry of ideas that can help your business website stand out in a crowded digital landscape.
#9 Abduzeedo
Abduzeedo is a unique resource for design inspiration since it provides a daily dose of creativity that crosses many different fields. Beyond web design, Abduzeedo offers a wide range of information that may help you redesign your website or come up with new ideas. The portal features a diverse array of artistic sectors that small company owners may find useful, including typography, architecture, photography, and 3D design.
One of Abduzeedo’s key strengths is its variety of formats. In addition to daily showcases, the platform offers long-form stories, tutorials, wallpapers, and even in-person events, all aimed at sparking creativity. This rich mix of content not only keeps you updated on the latest design trends but also encourages you to think outside the box. By exploring different design mediums, you can find inspiration in unexpected places, leading to a website design that’s both visually striking and conceptually robust. For small business owners looking to push the boundaries of their web design, Abduzeedo is a go-to resource that can fuel creative thinking and innovation.
#10 Land-book
Land-book is a premier destination for small business owners seeking top-notch web design inspiration, particularly for landing pages. Known for its meticulously curated collection, Land-book showcases a diverse array of designs across various industries, including SaaS platforms, agency websites, portfolios, and e-commerce stores. This platform is ideal for those looking to gather ideas for specific project types or explore innovative design trends that can enhance their business’s online presence.
A key highlight of Land-book is its user-friendly functionality which allows you to create an account and save your favourite designs for future reference. This makes it easy to revisit and refine your ideas as your project evolves. Whether you’re aiming for a retro aesthetic, looking to overhaul your social media presence, or need inspiration for user interface design, Land-book offers a wealth of creative possibilities that can help your business stand out in a crowded digital marketplace.
#11 Admire The Web
Admire The Web stands out for its extensive collection of curated design content, offering a rich reservoir of inspiration across various categories. While the site may not boast the most intuitive navigation, its well-tagged content allows users to explore a wide range of themed inspiration. From creative portfolios to innovative landing pages, the site’s categorization helps users uncover high-quality design examples tailored to their needs.
One of Admire The Web’s notable features is its “Related Content” section, which enhances the browsing experience by suggesting similar designs and projects. This functionality encourages deeper exploration, helping users continue their search for inspiration and discover new design ideas that align with their interests. Despite the site’s somewhat challenging interface, its wealth of categorised content and effective related content recommendations make it a valuable resource for design enthusiasts seeking fresh ideas.
#12 Lapa.Ninja
Lapa.Ninja is a wonderful resource for small company owners seeking high-quality landing page designs. The portal provides a regularly updated collection of landing pages in 47 categories, allowing users to get inspiration matched to their needs, such as graphics and gradients or particular colour palettes. Its most notable feature is the inclusion of full-page screenshots, which offer a comprehensive look of each landing page, helping users to better comprehend and adapt effective design structures to their own projects.
#13 Designspiration
Designspiration provides an exciting, Pinterest-like experience for online design inspiration, with an endlessly scrollable stream of ideas and photos. This platform specialises at presenting a diverse set of graphics, making it great for individuals in the early phases of a design project or looking for general creative inspiration. Users may explore a wide range of design styles and trends thanks to the straightforward interface, which is designed for quick browsing and discovery.
Designspiration distinguishes itself by allowing users to store and organise designs into personal collections, similar to Pinterest boards. This capability allows users to create a personalised repository of inspiring information that can be reviewed and improved over time.
#14 Webflow Showcase
The Webflow Showcase is an amazing resource for small company owners looking for design ideas related to the Webflow platform. This handpicked collection includes a wide range of website designs that demonstrate the full extent of Webflow’s possibilities. Users may sort designs by popularity or filter them by categories including animation, interaction, CMS, e-commerce, and portfolios.
What distinguishes the Webflow Showcase is its emphasis on platform-specific design examples. It emphasises the unique possibilities and creative solutions available inside the Webflow environment, making it easy to visualise how different design components might be integrated.
Website Design Inspirations Sources by Category
When searching for the perfect design inspiration, it’s helpful to explore resources categorised by specific design elements and needs. Here are some top sources categorised to help you find the inspiration that aligns with your project:
Layout and Landing Page Design
For stunning layouts and landing pages, focus on sources that showcase diverse design patterns and structures. These platforms offer insights into effective grid systems, creative use of whitespace, and compelling calls-to-action, allowing you to see how different elements come together to create impactful pages.
Example: One Page Love, accessguide.io, SaaS Pages, etc.
Color Schemes and Gradient Usage
Discover platforms that highlight innovative colour schemes and gradient techniques. These sources are invaluable for understanding how colour psychology can enhance user experience, and they provide a wealth of examples that demonstrate how colour combinations can set the tone for your website.
Example: Color Hunt, Color Designer, WebGradients, Dopely, etc.
Typography and Font Selection
Typography plays a critical role in website design, influencing readability and user engagement. Look for sources that feature a wide range of font pairings and typographic styles. These examples can help you choose fonts that complement your brand and ensure a visually appealing and accessible site.
Example: WhatTheFont, Fonts In Use, Pimp My Type, The Good Line Height, Typewolf, etc.
Visual Elements: Icons, Photos, and Mockups
Inspiration for visual components such as icons, pictures, and mockups may improve the overall appearance of your website. Sources that focus on these features offer a wide range of styles and methods, allowing you to choose graphics that improve the functioning and attractiveness of your website.
Example: Coverr, Mockuuups Studio, Icons8, Freepik, SVGDoodles, etc.
Effective Copywriting: Crafting Persuasive Content
Great design is more than simply graphics; it is also about captivating content. Investigate sources that emphasise copywriting approaches, including examples of compelling writing, intriguing headlines, and excellent narrative to encourage user action and participation.
Example: Great Landing Page Copy, Writesonic, etc.
Menu and Navigation Structures
Navigation is critical for the user experience. Experts in menu and navigation design can teach you how to construct intuitive, user-friendly systems. These examples, which range from dropdown menus to sticky headers, can assist you in creating an easy-to-navigate website.
Example: Justinmind, Navbar Gallery, Unsection-Navbar Design, etc.
Other Potential Sources
Theme shop
Theme shops, such as those that sell WordPress themes, and platforms like Template Monster, may be quite beneficial for practical and ready-made design solutions. These sites provide pre-made templates that are both visually appealing and functionally optimised. While these themes are intended to be used as is, they may also be utilised as a source of inspiration, allowing you to better understand current design trends and how they might be tailored to your own website.
Mobile friendly Inspiration
With mobile usage on the rise, prioritising mobile-friendly design is crucial. Sources like Pttrns offer a wealth of examples focused on mobile design patterns and best practices. Exploring these resources will help you create designs that are optimised for smaller screens and touch interfaces. Once you have a mobile design in place, you can adapt these ideas to your desktop version to ensure a cohesive user experience across all devices.
Social Media
Social media sites are a great source of design inspiration. Follow relevant hashtags like #webdesign, #webdesigntrends, and #webdesigninspiration to stay up to date on the latest ideas and trends. Social media not only shows the most recent design advancements, but it also allows you to see how other designers and businesses are putting these ideas into action, giving real-world examples and innovative solutions that may be used to inspire future web design initiatives.
Final Thoughts
In the ever-changing world of web design, tapping into credible and expert-verified sources of inspiration is critical for small businesses looking to stay competitive and improve user experience. By utilising the curated platforms mentioned, you can guarantee that your website is in line with current trends and efficiently engages your audience. Ven Agency’s web design services provide a professional touch that is suited to your individual demands. Contact us to see how we can help you turn your idea into an attractive and practical website that stands out in the digital realm.
