Web design is crucial in today’s digitally forward world, as it is the first impression of a company’s online presence. A well-designed website is a powerful asset, establishing credibility and trust with visitors.
75% of people judge a website’s credibility based on its design, highlighting the significant impact of web design aesthetics. Supporting this, studies show that most first impressions are design-related, and a staggering 90% of visitors leave a website if it’s poorly designed.
It should be noted that when it comes to web design, the home page is the initial point of contact and thus the most critical element in retaining visitors.
So today, let’s look at some inspirational websites of flat-rate graphic design companies. We will focus more on the top section of each home page design also known as ATF (above the fold) because 57% of a user’s time is spent there. By observing these examples, we aim to provide ideas for designing inspirational websites.
Let’s kick off this roster of inspirational websites with one of the top flat-rate design companies in function, Design Pickle.
The first thing we note about Design Pickle’s home page design is its light theme. You can see this light theme stretches across the entire website design if you visit their site. Why the light theme works well here is that it helps the brand’s primary color to shine. The green is used sparingly but it still shines well against the light background. The other brand colors like pink used for CTAs are also vividly clear due to this choice of background color.
Moreover, it helps the design look clean and uncluttered.
So the first tip to take here is to choose a theme that helps your brand’s color palette shine through.
Next, we see that the home page uses the image of a human. Now this could be a wise design tactic that appeals to the human psyche. A study showcases how using human photos on your website can heavily increase conversion rates. This is probably because human photos especially focusing on the face, can increase trust in visitors and help establish you as a reliable site.
But be sure to use real images instead of overused stock images because site visitors can quickly pick up on generic images.
So these 2 lessons are very important to consider if you’re in the process of creating a website. Remember that inspirational websites are a product of good research and clever design.
Next up on our list of inspirational websites, we have the home page design of another top flat-rate design company, KIMP.
By analyzing KIMP’s home page we can conclude their awareness of how a lot of people spend more time on the ATF. The top half is designed very visually with a darker theme. Whereas below the fold as well as the rest of the website follows a lighter theme.
This top half is given a significant visual makeover reinforcing its position as a leader in the graphic design realm.
Let’s see what lessons we can take from this home page design. So, the first lesson is the layout of the text content on the left side. Everything is hierarchically laid out with changes to font sizes making it easy to peruse through.
On average visitors spend 5.59 seconds looking at written content on sites, so you’ve to keep it short and easy to read as KIMP has expertly shown.
Next, most companies use a contrasting color for CTAs and so does KIMP but they also use a genius technique to encourage visitors to watch a video on how KIMP works by using a play button and an animated ripple effect around it. This type of animated CTA helps engage visitors and successfully take them through the funnel.
Finally, a mascot is a great way to personalize and diversify a brand. And KIMP, adding their mascot to the home page achieves these 2 things.
Another thing featuring a mascot helps achieve is that it helps unify branding across different platforms keeping things consistent as well as showcasing their expertise as a design company. The entire illustrated background also contributes to the latter.
So the main takeaways here are to create a visually engaging and pleasing home page, particularly for the above-the-fold portion, use a proper hierarchy for the text content when laying it out, and feature branding assets like mascots to engage visitors and build trust.
The next home page among inspirational websites belongs to Penji, a top flat-rated design company.
Penji’s goal by the looks of their home page design could be to increase engagement. They include a video that appears to be the focus of the home page. Including a video can help increase the time a user spends on a website by 88%. And Penji’s engaging video is a good addition to achieving this spent time.
They include another video but in a smaller window on the left side featuring a real person who appears to be on standby to offer a demo call. This kind of video engagement on your home page can impactfully increase the trust of a site visitor.
So it’s not just images and illustrations but videos with real people are also a part of creating inspirational websites that convert visitors into paying customers.
Next up on our list of inspirational websites, we have Design Shifu’s home page design.
Design Shifu’s home page is a clear depiction of the effective use of brand colors. You have to admit the dominant purple color scheme looks quite attractive and is the most noticeable element on this website. This is a shared sentiment confirmed by a survey that proved color as the second most valued visual element of a website.
Here in this home page design too we see that the above-the-fold features the most visually rich portion. Design Shifu also includes its mascot along with some design examples creatively laid behind it.
They also incorporate a genius color gradient where the lightest part of it is focused just behind the wording so it adds a sort of spotlight to the reading content.
Overall, Design Shifu’s home page design helps it rank among the top inspirational websites on this list owing to its visually appealing design.
The next home page we will explore on our list of inspirational websites is that of ManyPixel, yet another leading flat-rate design company.
A survey concluded that 84.6% of designers believe one of the biggest mistakes that small businesses make is designing a crowded website. ManyPixel’s home page design shows that they’re pros aware of this and share the same belief.
The design is quite minimal and does not include too much information. Now, remember information is also important to help visitors move to the next step of their customer journey. To supplement this they use the most convincing form of communication, a video. The video is an intro to ManyPixels that takes visitors through a quick tour of ManyPixels and its offerings.
And another important thing is the thumbnail of the video. Featuring a human presence in the video and including a glimpse of that in the thumbnail ensures that the video is genuine and personal.
Thus the most inspiring thing about this home page is the inclusion of this specifically designed video and keeping other content like images and text minimal.
So to create inspirational websites this is an excellent direction for you to follow.
We move our attention to another home page design on our list of inspirational websites. This particular design belongs to a leading flat-rate design company called Superside.
Superside’s home page design is incredible for many reasons.
First, the dark theme makes it look quite visually pleasing. If you visit the website, you’ll see that this dark theme extends beyond the ATF across the entire website. It’s a unique aspect of their visual identity that they apply to the whole of their website. It’s a perfect example of how you can diversify your website with a solid visual identity.
Next, the ATF of the home page design is crafted using some profound design techniques. The change in visual depth and perception of the various objects in the design make it look quite immersive. It’s one of the top reasons to list it here among these examples of inspirational websites.
Finally, we like the fact that they creatively utilize this space to feature some of their exceptional work. On average, users spend 5.94 seconds viewing a website’s main image. So if the main image consists of the product that a company is servicing, it immediately captures attention and effectively showcases what the business offers.
And overall, every element in this home page design contributes to it looking very professionally designed, and for a design company that’s very important.
Similarly, following these techniques, will help you craft inspirational websites that convert visitors.
Next up let’s discuss the homepage design of DarkRoast a leading contender in the flat rate design arena.
This ranked in this list of ideas for inspirational websites, for some unique reasons we didn’t cover previously.
First off, the dark theme is a part of DarkRoast’s overall visual identity and yes, the dark green is a perfect color combined with the muted orange. The lesson to take from this design is not just that it’s a dark theme, but the fact that it’s quite minimal in terms of design.
Both of these factors together contribute to a sleek and stylish web design. And the result of this combo is showcased in another real-life example where a dark theme and a minimal web design helped increase overall traffic by 402%.
Another idea to incorporate into creating inspirational websites is the layout followed by DarkRoast. This layout is called the F layout because the content is laid out in the shape of the letter F. Studies have shown that websites that follow this pattern, guide users’ eyes in a natural reading pattern thus resulting in better engagement.
Lastly, featuring the image of a real person in a nicely curated setting has a great impact on making this home page design unique and personal.
These web design ideas will prove to be quite helpful in your design ventures to craft inspirational websites.
We’re now moving on to the final example of inspirational websites of flat-rate design companies. This last example is the homepage design of Flocksy, a top company of its kind in the industry.
We wanted to include this home page design for some special reasons.
First, the web design is quite simple. And this simplicity extends to the entire website. Simplicity aids easy navigation and location of important parts of the website.
Secondly, on the left-hand side, it features client testimonials in the form of a video montage. We already know that videos increase engagement on websites but did you know that client testimonials also help increase conversions? That’s right, client testimonials increase the rate of conversions by 34%!
Lastly, if you visit the website you’ll see some animations help make it lively. The background as well as some of the text is animated to keep visitors engaged.
Overall, this collective effort makes it quite an engaging home page design showcasing that there are so many strategies you can implement to make inspirational websites.
As we wrap up, let’s summarize our findings from these inspirational websites of flat-rate design companies.
So as you get working on your own web designs, we hope these inspirational websites along with the ideas they present will come in handy.
