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2012 was clearly an interesting year design-wise. The responsive boom in web design gave birth to brilliant redesigns; clever layouts emerged with a focus on clear typography and impactful, contrasty colors. Large background images with a mood-setting character and sharp edges on unusual shapes were combined with interesting, yet intuitive interaction. Elegance meets down-to-earthness, that would be the motto I’d pick for a wonderful and exciting year of web design.
We want to share some of our favorite web designs from 2012. It is by no means a complete collection, but just a slice of some of the most impressive designs that stood out. Take a look and get inspired. Maybe it will get you excited about what the next year will bring and give you some ideas on how web design will evolve.
Supereight Studio
Crafting Type
Build 2012
Daniel Hopwood
Philip House
Like There Is No Tomorrow
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Hipstamatic
Gin Lane Media
Manos
Buffalo
The Mealings
Elliot Jay Stocks
Fine Thought
Nick Jones
Drexel University
Joint
Sound Creatures Pictoplasma
Nudge
Bad Racket
Banger’s
Formfett
Squarespace
Muriel Labro
Circles
nanozoom
Wicked Palate
Lotta Nieminen
Fear the Grizzly
Pure Pleasure Design
Impero
Rockaway Relief
Startup Giraffe
Matthew Carleton
Mosaic
Andrew Lucas
Offscreen
Flywheel
Anonymous
Cue
We hope you enjoyed this little list and became inspired!
What’s your favorite web design of 2012?
nice…clear…clean… to the point design
A great selection… Many thanks..
My favorite? http://www.blacknegative.com
I personally find the redesign of Watch Repairs USA to be very high end.
The Site from impero is my favourite. Flash like animations, nice color mix.
Thank you for the collection!
I liked what I saw, nice list. Good work !
3/4 of these pages using the same main color 🙂 Where is originality?
Love this collection! I really love Andrew Lucas’ site, so simple and yet so brilliantly pleasant to look at 🙂
I think these are the best creative, clean and faster loading designs. Thanks for the awesome post. Shared…
Very nice selection.
Great selection. I’m humbled by the inclusion of Bad Racket 🙂
My personal favorites are
http://manoscrafted.com/
and
http://www.themealings.com.au/
Hey Great selection. I appreciate being counted among some other really stunning designs.
Cheers.
nice and clean layout…but to me as you scroll down (IMHO) I feel they all look the same. and most of them are from design agencies not a mix of different categories/industries. using a big image and typography is one thing but doesn’t necessarily mean distinctive.
I like some of them though 😉
Designers and promo-sites only. Where worthy web-applications?
Nice selection. Thanks for inspiration ! 😉
Thanks for inspire! Very nice web list!!
Gin lane media is so great!!!
Love the examples that use lush photography to present the product/subject in action, or to suggest some core quality of the product/company/service. Gin Lane, Bangers, Formfett, and Matthew Carlton are expert examples. I think we’ll be seeing even more photography for site design in 2013. It’s just a fantastic way to help the user identify with an experience or person.
Cheers
Sarah Bauer
Navigator Multimedia
Love the selection, but I think it’s easier to design graphically impressive websites for creative businesses. I’d love to see samples of websites that convey complex ideas and concepts or were challenged by technical content – yet are beautiful too…
Great collection, not sure if it’s just me but several of the images are not showing up in the post.
Wow, what an honor to have Manos included in this list of such great websites! Thanks!
Nice Selection,Personally I like it
good job ! yu best !
Oi, tudo bem?
Seu website faz muito sucesso aqui no Brasil, e essa seleção de 2012 foi espetacular.
Very cool website selection, really great work of art. I would love to be a part of any these website developers. Amazing!
great websites, really like the bangers one!
Interesting list. Love the beautiful timeline in photobook from iOS.
Great Clean Designs. Very inspirational for the new year.
I want to share this amazing post but i dont find a button to do it 🙁
My favourite website of 2012 is http://www.trafficlight.se