25 Examples Of Clean, Effective And Beautiful Web Design
July 30, 2008 
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Lately I’ve been having conversations with several people about what is clean, effective and beautiful web design. Seems like I inspired a few of my professional and casual acquaintances to start their own blog from my post on the importance of building your personal brand.
I’m really glad to be motivating people and never have a problem answering questions. Since I had a few people ask me similar questions about what is great design, I thought I’d put some examples together. (Side note: this is yet another great reason why you should have a blog: you can “reply to all” in an open format, along with discussion and just relink to it in the future when the subject comes up again.)
I probably view more than 1,000 websites each week, so when something is unusually good it stands out from the clutter. The web is expanding an incredible amount daily – with both well designed and poorly designed sites. With such a tremendous amount of competition, standing out is a huge key to success.
Before viewing these examples, please check out my previous post on what defines a good small business website to get the background on my thoughts on strong design. The elements described in that post are certainly represented in many of the sites I’m about to share with you.
The examples below include sites that:
- Are impeccably clean
- Have personality
- Stand out
- Are extremely effective
- Are well thought out and usable
Some of these are blogs, some of these are businesses, and some of these are web 2.0 services. The design you choose for your site depends upon what your goals are. However, in my mind, effective and clean design transcends the genre and purpose of your website and just involves keeping certain vital elements in mind, such as usability, function and purpose.
The point of this post was not to peg good design to one specific type of .com, I just wanted to share some sites that really stand out. Of course, good design is subjective, however as someone who spends much of my time seeing what resonates, I think I have developed some aesthetic sense for what works.
Hopefully these will give you a bit of inspiration on what you want your .com or blog to look like.
Here we go – I’m not going to editorialize these or write comments, I’m just going to present them – keep in mind the design, elements and interface on these sites you think works and make note of them for you when you develop your next .com:
25 samples of clean, effective and beautiful design – click each image to visit the site and see the design live
Blogs:
Ars Technica
Blog Herald
Chris Brogan
Chris G
Dosh Dosh
Zen Habits
Marketing FM
Mashable
Noah Brier
Smashing Magazine
ProBlogger
Read Write Web
Torrent Freak
Web businesses/services:
TechDirt
CrunchBase
SEO Book
Van SEO Design
37 Signals
Wake Interactive
Expression Engine
Traffik
WordPress
Ning
Plaxo
Flickr
Just a note: there are countless examples of great web design. I chose to showcase just a few I’m a fan of, but there certainly are a plethora more. Feel free to leave a comment and link us to some design work you think is ultra-effective, stands out and is otherwise exceptional.
Related articles from The Future Buzz:
The Ultimate Blog List: 101 Online Marketing, Blog Tips, Make Money Online, And SEO Links
10 Reasons Your Small Business Should Have A Blog
Case Study In Building A Blogging Network: The Daily Network
Related articles from around the web:
Web Design Inspiration – 25 Websites With Beautiful Background
travis replied | Jul 30, 2008 (1 comment)
I’m suprised you didn’t include Digg in the bunch. I think the way it is designed is beautiful in it’s self.
Chris Brogan… replied | Jul 30, 2008 (6 comments)
Thanks so very much for thinking of me. My design was done by Nico Pin at Snowy Day Design. Super great guy. @imnico on Twitter.
I loved seeing these all in a row. Interesting how we all use our sites differently.
Adam Singer replied | Jul 30, 2008 (594 comments)
@Travis – Agreed, Digg is another really well designed site. I just put the first 25 that came to mind up here.
@Chris Brogan – I know – I contacted Snow Day to redo my site because I liked yours so much. Unfortunately they’re booked up right now!
zeeol replied | Jul 30, 2008 (1 comment)
some of them isn’t clean at all. At least I think so.
Steven Bradley replied | Jul 30, 2008 (16 comments)
Thanks for including me Adam. I know we visit a lot of the same sites, but it’s interesting that you picked some of my favorites.
It’s also interesting to see all the sites lined up and to realize how many different ways there are to come up with a good design.
Fox replied | Jul 30, 2008 (1 comment)
Great list.
But I think that some of them isn’t very clean.
Sachin replied | Jul 30, 2008 (2 comments)
Most of them are good..some of them are excellent
Arnold – Mr.Gadget replied | Jul 30, 2008 (1 comment)
Get set of websites. I wouldn’t say all are beautiful but I would say effective.
Keep up the good work.
meh replied | Jul 30, 2008 (1 comment)
RWW makes me puke. it is very cluttered and ugly. some of these other sites are up there as well. SEOBook comes to mind
Sarah replied | Jul 30, 2008 (1 comment)
Nice list!
My fav site I just love these days is:
http://www.studio7designs.com/blog/
Found that yesterday on Noupe
Peter replied | Jul 31, 2008 (1 comment)
They’re all the same. Cliche 2.0
Time for some new ideas, don’t you think?
Alex replied | Jul 31, 2008 (1 comment)
thats a nice list..arstechnica is awesome..i agree with the other posters that digg.com should be on the list. its a really well designed site.
http://www.29travels.com
Matt Strange replied | Jul 31, 2008 (1 comment)
I noticed a few sites you listed have rounded corners, this technique is slick! but knowing how to integrate it within the design is tricky… i love the effect..
Some lovely inspiration.. thanks for the post.
Andrew Galasetti replied | Jul 31, 2008 (1 comment)
I’ve always been a fan of ars technica’s design. It’s a blog but the design helps it seem like its a large publisher like a magazine or newspaper.
I recently got a new design for my blog: http://www.lyved.com/ I tried to do the same type of idea, keep the blog layout but also add in elements of a newspaper/magazine website layout.
-Andrew
Tech replied | Jul 31, 2008 (1 comment)
Very nice sites. You have a great eye for good design. My favorite site designs now are Ning, Delicious, and Flickr
daniel – omstrategy replied | Jul 31, 2008 (1 comment)
hey, Adam, how are you?
Interesting post – I’d love to see them separated into ‘Clean’, ‘Effective’ & ‘Beautiful’! Or to have a break down of what you think works/doesn’t work on each.
daniel
Adam Singer replied | Jul 31, 2008 (594 comments)
Lots of good replies on this, thanks !
@daniel – I really just put together a bunch of sites that are aesthetically pleasing to me in one way or another (being clean, effective or beautiful).
Didn’t separate on purpose, I think that personal preference plays a huge role in design and I didn’t want to editorialize for exactly that reason. I’ll try to do a more in depth analysis next time on less sites and drill down further.
Cheers,
Adam
Bill K. replied | Aug 4, 2008 (7 comments)
Interesting selection. I’m still at the stage where I know what I like when I’m on a site but can’t really identify the kind of design that would work best with what I’m trying to do. Hopefully that vision gels over time. Good design seems to have a lot to do with the publisher knowing exactly what the blog or Web site is all about and being able to convey that effectively.
Payel (HIP) replied | Aug 22, 2008 (1 comment)
Hi! Adam
I liked your post. I could see some of the best web designs in the web world.
Thanks
Payel
sezam20 replied | Aug 22, 2008 (1 comment)
Hi, thank you for your collection. I think
here you may find a lot of nice designs: http://www.designreviewers.com/
Emlyn replied | Jan 4, 2009 (1 comment)
Being honest: While some of these designs may indeed be effective in their respective markets, most of these examples–with a few exceptions–don’t strike me as particularly “clean” or “beautiful” website designs. In fact many of these aren’t attractive at all.
For designs that, in my view, more closely fit the “clean” and “beautiful” labels, I suggest checking out some of the collections assembled on smashingmagazine.com, webcreme.com, and vandelaydesign.com.
Mai replied | Feb 18, 2009 (1 comment)
Hi there –I am a web designer, and I accidentally ran across this post. Your article was great in pointing out that usability and a clean homepage are components in making a website look beautiful and effective. However, I was disappointed with many of the examples that you showed. I have seen some beautiful designs that have lots of content (such as apple.com as oppose to amazon.com). It seems a lot of your selections are websites that perhaps you are familiar with because you visit them often, and that you’ve become accustomed to the way they present their information. You also included a lot of content-heavy and blog websites, which I think too often have too many links, options, and text and not enough hierarchy (think, wired.com). I’d like to see a second part to this article that addresses more visual and less content heavy websites that are beautifully and effectively executed.
g* replied | May 11, 2009 (1 comment)
Ehhhhh some of these sites may be effective, but “clean” they are not. Most are quite cluttered with many hierarchies competing for attention. Almost all use the same tired two-column+header/footer blog format with a lot of information present upfront with little to no filtration.
Sure, they do the job, but most don’t really have much fun with it.
I agree with Peter, time for something new.