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30 Most Inspirational Light Web Designs

Beautifully Light
  • July 7th, 2008
  • BY Brian
  • COMMENTS 28

I’ve seen a lot of focus on dark designs in the last few months - including my own site redesign and Elite Platinum. However, I still believe that a lot of inspiration can still be found in light designs - with their sleek and polished look, light web designs can be downright amazing. Here are thirty to get your creative juices pumping. Enjoy!

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The 9513


Viva Viral Video


Zack Ginies


Squawk Design


Andrew Bradshaw Design


Viget


Jason Duerr


Built By Buffalo


Spanish-Portugese


Aaron Mentele


Simple Bits


Third And Grand


Red Relevant


Poccuo


Wishlistr


Mark’s Digital Farm


Simply Invoices


Fling Media


Basmati Tree


Designing The News


Cherry Bloom


I Love Typography


I’m Not Playing


Guilherme Neumann


Head Space


Karim Zurita


Groove Shark


En Route Film


Ryan Downie


Mollom

  1. Katy CastroNo Gravatar said on July 7th, 2008 at 11:56 pm

    I love the crisp feel a light site has to offer. Though I prefer a wide variety of colors and styles, there is still plenty of room for this “airy” clean feel. Great collection of sites Brain.

  2. ThomasNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 3:10 am

    Thanks for this list. Lots of great design

  3. Mark CreativeNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 5:01 am

    Great inspiration there, favourite would be Andrew Bradshaw, love the colours and feel. Thanks for taking the time to put together.

  4. FubizNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 6:12 am

    Nice list. Love Ilovetypo.

  5. Kenny SaundersNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 6:13 am

    Hey Brian,

    Great list here, thanks for adding my site to it.

  6. SanderNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 9:03 am

    Thank you for compiling this list, some great inspirational websites listed.

  7. Pinkpetrol.comNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 9:06 am

    I’d love to be featured on these types of things! :) hehe

  8. SeanNo Gravatar
    SeanNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 9:34 am

    Some of these sites are not really all that inspirational.
    The worst offender is Wishlistr. It’s such a generic “web 2.0″ look.
    There are several others that look so much like templates. Simply Invoices and Fling Media come to mind right away.

    There are nice ones, but this list could have been narrowed down some.
    Thanks for the list.

  9. Ryan DownieNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Thanks for the mention, means a lot to be featured with some of the designers on here.
    keep up the good work.

  10. Mark ApletNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 10:29 am

    Everyone has their own take on what is inspirational or not. Personally I like all these sites for various reasons. It’s a great list. Some of them appear on just about every “Top X” list out there. If I could critique anything above, it would be that I would like to see more original sites listed and not just the common favorites. But that’s being picky. Thanks Brian. Some real gems in the list.

  11. JYNo Gravatar
    JYNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

    Good list. A breath of freshair from the much overused cms template look.

    (no offense intended! :)

  12. BrianNo Gravatar
    BrianNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 1:53 pm

    @Katy - Thanks for the comment. I agree, while I am more of a “dark design” kind of guy, I still enjoy the “cleanliness” that a light website has to offer.

    @Thomas - No problem :D

    @Mark - Andrew definitely has a nice looking site - I love the way he has organized his content - even just the little things like a right aligned navigation.

    @Fubiz - I hope you find some inspiration here!

    @Kenny - No problem - your site is very impressive.

    @Sander - Absolutely :D

    @Pink - Soon enough my friend. Perhaps in my next Dark article.

    @Sean - I appreciate your honesty. In this post, I tried to cover a lot of ground with just 30 designs. I tried to fit in different styles, different secondary colors, dirty, clean, different content organizations, and different website purposes. I think that every web design here has some inspiration to offer somewhere - even if it isn’t in the design itself. Maybe a logo or a new way to place content? I agree with you though - not all of these designs are the most impressive ever - but inspirational nonetheless.

    @Ryan - No problem - your site is very well designed. Keep it up :D

    @Mark - Glad you liked the post - I have a feeling that a lot of people get tired of websites that repeatedly make it into “Top X” lists, but I feel that they made it for a reason. Anyhow, I will definitely work in the future to get some lesser known sites featured up here!

    @JY - Thanks, and agreed. I get tired of “common” designs too - every now and then something unique really gets me excited :P

  13. Andy HowardNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 2:29 pm

    Awesome roundup!

  14. ZhuNo Gravatar
    ZhuNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

    I love the Basmati Tree design…

    Black is beautiful but it doesn’t work everywhere. A lot of attention to small details is needed in order to make it user-friendly (i.e font not too white, careful balance of margins, greyscale etc) and I saw a lot of website forgetting that lately. Nope, not you, love your design, although I didn’t know your previous design, since I’m a new subscriber.

  15. mikko | inuNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 4:41 pm

    aaah nice list. Really love nice clean designs.
    Got some good inspiration for layout n’ info for my site.
    bookmarking site too ;]

  16. AaronNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

    Hey Brian, thanks for the (charisma18) include. Good to know I can still buy my way on to these lists.

    Don’t tell anyone I said that.

  17. KyleNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 9:15 pm

    I’m incredibly honored to have found a place on this list among many great web designs. Thanks!

  18. BethNo Gravatar said on July 8th, 2008 at 10:20 pm

    These are nice designs, but I had trouble finding one that wasn’t for a blog without using my imagination. Thank you for showing them!

  19. Mark ForresterNo Gravatar said on July 9th, 2008 at 5:20 am

    Thanks for the feature Brian. Honoured to be amongst such a distinguished list of websites.

  20. About WebdesignNo Gravatar said on July 10th, 2008 at 5:39 am

    Nice list, but to me they do not all qualify for light design.

  21. André FriedrichsNo Gravatar said on July 10th, 2008 at 9:28 am

    List list! But if you wanna see a really clean & light website… visit me! :) And i miss shauninman.com

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