A Creative Year: Distinctive Web Designs of 2012

An inspirational collection of the most impressive and distinctive web designs from the year 2012.

A Creative Year: Distinctive Web Designs of 2012

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

supereightstudio

Crafting Type

crafting

Build 2012

build2012

Daniel Hopwood

danielhopwood

Philip House

philiphouse

Like There Is No Tomorrow

likethereisnotomorrow

Hipstamatic

hipstamatic

Gin Lane Media

ginlanemedia

Manos

manos

Buffalo

buffalo

The Mealings

themealings

Elliot Jay Stocks

elliot

Fine Thought

finethought

Nick Jones

nickjones

Drexel University

drexel

Joint

joint

Sound Creatures Pictoplasma

pictoplasma

Nudge

nudge

Bad Racket

badracket

Banger’s

bangers

Formfett

formfett

Squarespace

squarespace

Muriel Labro

muriel

Circles

circles

nanozoom

nanozoom

Wicked Palate

wickedpalate

Lotta Nieminen

lotta

Fear the Grizzly

fearthegrizzly

Pure Pleasure Design

purepleasuredesign

Impero

impero

Rockaway Relief

rockaway

Startup Giraffe

startupgiraffe

Matthew Carleton

matthewc

Mosaic

mosaic

Andrew Lucas

andrew

Offscreen

off

Flywheel

flywheel

Anonymous

anonymous

Cue

cue

We hope you enjoyed this little list and became inspired!

What’s your favorite web design of 2012?

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Manoela Ilic

Manoela is the main tinkerer at Codrops. With a background in coding and passion for all things design, she creates web experiments and keeps frontend professionals informed about the latest trends.

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  1. The Site from impero is my favourite. Flash like animations, nice color mix.
    Thank you for the collection!

  2. Love this collection! I really love Andrew Lucas’ site, so simple and yet so brilliantly pleasant to look at 🙂

  3. I think these are the best creative, clean and faster loading designs. Thanks for the awesome post. Shared…

  4. Hey Great selection. I appreciate being counted among some other really stunning designs.
    Cheers.

  5. 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 😉

  6. 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

  7. 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…

  8. Great collection, not sure if it’s just me but several of the images are not showing up in the post.

  9. Oi, tudo bem?
    Seu website faz muito sucesso aqui no Brasil, e essa seleção de 2012 foi espetacular.

  10. Very cool website selection, really great work of art. I would love to be a part of any these website developers. Amazing!