When web design inspiration is needed, the first place a lot of designers turn to are web design/CSS galleries. While these type of sites are a good source of inspiration, the problem is that there are so many it’s difficult to tell which of them offer the best content. The 12 sites listed below feature high-quality web designs and are usually updated frequently. Not that there aren’t other good galleries out there, but these are just amongst the ones I turn to in time of inspirational needs. Feel free to share your favorites!
12 Web Design Galleries
Design Meltdown
Design Meltdown is usually the site I use when I’m looking for examples of a certain design element, industry, or color scheme. There’s a lot of good examples under each category and I love how they mark all visited sites for you.
Design Snack
Design Shack is the design showcase that you control. You can sort sites by category or by color. I enjoy the way the sites are presented and the ease of use.
Creamy CSS
Simplicity is how I would describe Creamy CSS. It is a WordPress driven site that doesn’t have a lot of banner ad noise. Which allows you to focus directly on the showcased sites.
CSS Vault
While their presentation of featured sites requires more clicks than I’ d like, CSS Vault offers a lot of great design resources and articles.
CSS Mania
I often checkout their “Creme de la Creme” entries in their blog, in which they feature the top 10 most exceptional designs out of their monthly selections. There is also an available API.
CSS Beauty
CSS Beauty offers a great deal of design resources and news.
CSS Drive
CSS Drive has a nice resource section for menu designs. They offer an abundance of other design resources including news, examples, and tools.
We Love WP
Simple and easy to use gallery of sites created with WordPress. About only 1 of 10 submissions get omitted to the gallery so the quality of the sites that are showcased are superb.
CSSelite
CSSelite features only sites of the highest-quality. I really like how you can sort by category, and it’s well worth to check out the dev resources as well.
Faveup
Faveup is part of the Envato Network. It is very easy to browse with it’s nice and simple design. Besides websites, Faveup also features inspirational logos, business cards, and Flash websites.
Best Web Gallery
Best Web Gallery is brought to you by the creator of Web Designer Wall and N.Design Studio. Eventhough there is a lot of banner ad noise on this site, I really like the hoverover effect for each thumbnail. Where it shows a larger screenshot of the site.
CSS Heaven
CSS Heaven is all about Fresh and innovative CSS / XHTML web designs submitted by web designers from around the world. Again I like how you can sort the gallery by category, but wish their gallery was updated a little more often.
Creamy CSS
February 14th, 2009
Really good review! :) and thanks for short description of each gallery!
Ann Storer
February 14th, 2009
I knew about a couple of these sites, but not all. Thanks for the great descriptions! I’ll be checking these out.
kafka
February 14th, 2009
Forgotten thefwa.com ?
Roy Vergara
February 14th, 2009
@kafka: I like how The FWA has a huge collection of examples and you’re able to sort by category. The Dock function they offer is really cool as well. I think I just get put off by the Flash interface. Really great site though, thanks for your suggestion! :)
loswl
February 14th, 2009
Very inspiring, those are some great selections :o)
shankyrhodes
February 16th, 2009
I Like your web gallery. it is inspiring for everyone.it is very pretty.
Jesse Vlasveld
February 16th, 2009
My website gallery is relatively new, but it may move you an inch or two. You can find it at http://cssfanatic.com
Laurens
February 16th, 2009
No Smashing Magazine? (ok ok it’s not a gallery site, but still has the better galleries out there..)
Laurens
February 17th, 2009
By the way, this is still a great list!
We just posted an interesting gallery with designs just from Belgium.
Have a look here: http://www.tndmedia.nl/blog/webdesign/445/49-beautiful-webdesigns-made-in-belgium/, does that move you too? :)
Would you be interested to do a US only gallery?
MirazTutorials
February 17th, 2009
Really inspirational galleries gave me a few ideas for designs and tutorials :) job well done
Narshada
February 19th, 2009
“About only 1 of 10 submissions get omitted to the gallery so the quality of the sites that are showcased are superb. ”
To omit something means to leave it out, so this sentence doesn’t make sense with the context you intended. I figure you meant ‘submitted’ which is to include.
Also, it should read “the quality of the sites that are showcased is superb” as ‘sites’ is plural but ‘quality’ is a singular notion.
Other than my grammer gripes, good article.
Rory Martin
February 24th, 2009
Great gallery list, haven’t heard of a lot of these sites so I’ll check them out after this…
Always found Design Shack inspiration gold when Im struggling for ideas. Designers block is a terrible thing but a few minutes on there and I’m away!
Thanks for the new inspiration!
Lorraine Harper
March 9th, 2009
Thanks for the interesting post.
CSS Envy | asker
March 10th, 2009
Wow! what a resource ! Amazing …
JWAL
March 12th, 2009
Hey,
Great post. I would have loved to see http://uniquecss.com listed. If you’ve never visited, be sure to check it out sometime. Our judges choose 7 finalists each month with a $25 dollar prize going to the best designer.
JWAL
Website Design
May 18th, 2009
Hey
“About only 1 of 10 submissions get omitted to the gallery so the quality of the sites that are showcased are superb. ”
To omit something means to leave it out, so this sentence doesn’t make sense with the context you intended. I figure you meant ’submitted’ which is to include.
Also, it should read “the quality of the sites that are showcased is superb” as ’sites’ is plural but ‘quality’ is a singular notion.
Other than my grammer gripes, good article.
Sandy Saini
July 7th, 2009
Very nice clean and professional designs. Well done!
Sandip Saini
July 7th, 2009
It is really good and very much useful for me.
Nice posting. Keep it up!!
Thank for sharing
Isidor
September 7th, 2009
This post lists 220 galleries:
http://www.stonesouptech.com/blog/2009/09/a-more-complete-up-to-date-list-of-css-galleries/
Harry Whitley
January 9th, 2010
Hey…Nice posting. Keep it up!! have you check…. http://www.dzinemart.com. this is also same CSS Website Gallery.
Learn Wordpress
May 16th, 2010
Great post. Very refreshing given all the duplicate content out there. Thanks for doing something original.
Jae Broncheau
May 17th, 2010
Cheers for posting this up. Could be very useful very soon!
yeni albümler
May 17th, 2010
Thank you for informing us, thanks a lot. I’ve added your site to my favorites.
cam mozaik
May 24th, 2010
Thanks a lot! I am just learning Information.
Php and this was very easy to follow and helped a lot.
You really took time to explain every little bit.
Thanks again…
help stop drinking
June 10th, 2010
Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink – bookmark this
zabavne videa s detmi
June 15th, 2010
great, thanks for good post dude
TwitterBackgrounds
July 7th, 2010
Thanks for all these designs. I found them very simple, very pretty. Congrats
Fredia Conrod
October 12th, 2010
There is countless differing thoughts on design and style that it truly is out of the question to please everybody sadly…