50 Beautifully Dark Web Designs
Selecting colors for a site is one of the most crucial parts of web design. The color palette can evoke certain types of emotions in a user and sets the tone for the user’s experience while perusing the site. Websites with dark colors can represent "non-mainstream", "elite", and "unconventional".
The use of dark backgrounds also centers the attention towards the content, making it an effective theme for portfolios, image galleries, and design-centered sites.
In this collection, you’ll find some of the best dark-themed web designs. This is the second part of the "Beautiful Web Designs" series that starts off at "30 Beautifully Blue Web Designs".
Starbucks Coffee At Home
electricurrent
Pikaboo
TAKE THE WALK
Bird Malaysia
Elan Snowboards
Eye Candy
Mike Poss’ Rock Guitar Blog
The Statement
Nile Inside
Batman The Dark Knight in 3D
Ordered List
LaRedoute
BootB
B.N.WEISS
MyCacties
Traffik CMS
Riffs Music Academy
cyan
Meet the BigMan
Twelve Restaurant & Lounge Bar
AdaptD
Pixel Farm
Na vlastní nebezpečí
FAST EDDIE CHAMBERS
Elliot Jay Stocks
depthCORE
IDEO
Sascha Eggenberger
2Pitch
JUXT Interactive
Let It Bleed
okb
Viewzi
Rox
Training by Collective Idea
Level9 Design
Rabotilnica
Hamish Macpherson
Timothy van Sas
Incase
new {concept}
coda.coza
Dead Metropolis Recordings
Mad Detective
Chyrp
Backboard
Product Planner
Wacom Pen Collective
Krista’s Creations
What do dark designs mean to you?
Why do you think a designer chooses a dark color scheme? What emotions and messages do dark designs convey to the audience? Share your thoughts in the comments!
83 Comments
Navdeep
October 26th, 2008
Nice list
Thomas | Brush King
October 26th, 2008
Nice, Thanks
Umar
October 26th, 2008
this looks pretty cool
Adam
October 26th, 2008
Nice list, thanks. It’s nice there is one web from Czech Republic :))
kushi
October 26th, 2008
i like this website color combination
Dan
October 26th, 2008
http://www.pzgi.com is another great one
Panther
October 26th, 2008
Mark my words, I’ll make it to one of these lists someday!
stan
October 26th, 2008
Why is goocoal.com not on this list !!!!
Seeds For Wealth Good Web Design
October 26th, 2008
Excellent list! There are so many great designers out there so passionate about their work it’s frightening.
Once again, excellent list!
Rodnei
October 26th, 2008
Mine is only a training with CSS, and is still under development. Take a look http://studioz.multiply.com
One day I’ll make one like these!
Farid Hadi
October 26th, 2008
Nice list.
A lot of these designs are really great.
Virat
October 26th, 2008
Very nice list.
Sam
October 26th, 2008
Sweet, I love these designs. Dark designs look so great, I can’t get enough of them.
Pims
October 26th, 2008
Glad to see some new designs. Nice list.
Nick
October 26th, 2008
Thanks for the inspiration.
John
October 26th, 2008
Ahhhh, what a satisfying blog post. Thanks!
I’ve always loved using dark backgrounds (like on my website, http://www.neardark.com – shamesless plug) as they tend to really make photography and typography pop on the screen.
Am thrilled to see someone gather up this nice list of examples.
Cheers,
John
Stag
October 26th, 2008
Very inspiring. I’m also a fan of this one: http://niid.to – dark and mysterious, with a humorous twist.
Steven Snell
October 26th, 2008
Looks like I’ll have to change my posting schedule for this week. I had a draft of dark websites waiting to be published. Oh well, nice collection.
liam
October 26th, 2008
Stop it! Too many great posts. You’re making the rest of us look bad. Especially me!
Love it, and recently been loving your site a lot more and more. Great stuff buddy.
Tung
October 26th, 2008
Nice list…
Danh ba web 2.0
October 26th, 2008
Nice list
Exdizajn
October 26th, 2008
Great list, my favorite is incg.nl
ying0216
October 26th, 2008
Nice collection Mmm
Andy Sowards
October 27th, 2008
Man! Great list! Some awesome sites in here, Still Can’t believe mine isn’t in there tho! ;) Its pretty dark!
insic
October 27th, 2008
nice designs. love it!
Marcelo
October 27th, 2008
a recommendation:
http://www.mekanism.com
design
October 27th, 2008
this one quite unique from Sweden
http://www.constructit.com
Dave Ellis
October 27th, 2008
Thanks for including the Riffs site!
James
October 27th, 2008
Really nice collection. IMO a couple of them seem a little bland but nonetheless a really nice demonstration of what can be done with the colour black!
Curvball
October 27th, 2008
Awesome collection, a few of those are in my top 10 list :)
Keep up the good work and hope to see some more classic posts like this from you in the future.
As for myself personally, I love dark design – it just feels right.
Robin
October 27th, 2008
Awsome designs, got inspiration from a few of them for my blog.
Rishi
October 27th, 2008
Very slick!
Justo
October 27th, 2008
I personally like http://www.ttthings.com a lot, but I guess it’s just a matter of taste cause I usually prefer dark on white websites.
JuanS
October 27th, 2008
I like them dark themes!
IhateDesign
October 27th, 2008
exist more words for that? no, only Wow!
great recopilation!
PureDezigner
October 27th, 2008
Great resource with perfect timing, I’m currently looking for ideas for a redesign of my current portfolio site: http://www.puredezigner.com. Thanks for the post!!
Salwa
October 27th, 2008
Great inspiration. Awesome list. Thanks!
Graeme
October 27th, 2008
A goo dlist of sites, and some inspirational ideas too. Even my own site is dark, although not for much longer as iI’m in the process of re-designing it.
iBeer
October 27th, 2008
cool list, thanks!
good work
Fifty Studio
October 27th, 2008
You left us off!? Terrible. Fifty Studio
Those other 50 are some mighty fine sites, too.
Brian
October 27th, 2008
One more perhaps? Kinetic Shadows
Kimberley
October 28th, 2008
tijuanaflats.com It’s a restaurant and an awesome web page especially since the burrito restaurant seems to be geared towards young people. I love the creativity of all of these sites.
elisa
October 28th, 2008
wow…they’re cool!
Azeem
October 28th, 2008
Great list – The Ordered List guys site is brilliant.
Time to shamelessly plug my own dark design (sorry!): http://www.azeemalim.co.uk
rogier
October 28th, 2008
Dark and portal
netzwahn
October 28th, 2008
Great second part of your “beautiful web design” series.
Thanks for your work
Content Writing Advice
October 28th, 2008
nice black list. dugg.
Santiago Sosa
October 29th, 2008
Nice list, there are many designers intimidated by dark color layouts, in the other hand I believe that if done correctly, a dark website looks very sophisticated.
http://www.alldigitalmedia.com
Mladen
October 29th, 2008
Was a site like twitter but with few categories like:
I love…
I think..
I hate..
on this list, i can’t find it but i loved that site :(
Simon
October 30th, 2008
Another one that’s good is http://www.redchilli.com
Anthony
October 31st, 2008
amazing work! check out my Long Island Web Design Company if you can.
Jernej
October 31st, 2008
I like Elliot Jay Stocks!
Mithun
November 1st, 2008
Great Site Designs … Nice.. ..
aronil
November 3rd, 2008
Great list! Honestly I don’t know why one would choose black except for maybe to be diff from the popular white bgs out there. Black to me gives more depth and also looks very artistic. Black in acting, allows you to be the plain canvas.. so maybe in that sense that’s why people use black bgs. Allowing others to interpret what you could possibly mean with your creative bg…. i’m rambling but it’s a thought :)
Bored
November 3rd, 2008
i really hate most dark designs but some of these are very cool.
Ralph
November 6th, 2008
Great summary about “dark web-design” with many, many great ideas for me.
Thank you. Ralph
Kevin
November 14th, 2008
Absolutely nice collection.. how about http://smashingfeeds.com ?
sheeraz
January 8th, 2009
http://www.teppser.com is also a beautiful dark design…
süperya
January 20th, 2009
I like these design. Thanks ;)
PJN Swindon
January 22nd, 2009
Love the list you’ve got there, very inspirational
john o
January 29th, 2009
Cool none of the pictures would load because your damn site wouldn’t stop trying to connect to an ad server.
Shibani
February 4th, 2009
Fantastic list..
Jennifer Farley
February 5th, 2009
That really is an excellent list, thanks. There’s a lot of sites there that I had never seen before that are really lovely.
Roger
March 14th, 2009
It takes a pretty good web designer to make a dark background really work well. Some of these really do work well. I can’t imagine many businesses using sites like these unless the objective is to shock the viewer into paying attention.
web design
March 24th, 2009
Some of these designs are superb. A great inspiration tool. Great list!
Philippe Gauthier
June 2nd, 2009
Great list! A lot of good inspiration!
TDz
June 2nd, 2009
i like Starbucks, Pikaboo, Meet the BigMan
And would like to present mine ,
http://www.dgzoo.com/d2
wish it will be urs next list : D
Duncan
July 7th, 2009
Great list of designs – truly inspiring!
Peter Nichol
August 4th, 2009
I love these designs – fantastic selection.
Hopefully one day I’ll be making websites like these!
curly
August 31st, 2009
Oh my gosh what a wonderful collection, Ive bookmarked your post and will return often for inspiration.
Dana
September 24th, 2009
Very Helpful post. I can easily check these top creatively designed website.
Kate
October 3rd, 2009
cool collection too, as blue one.
Ah, i’m such a fan of vector lines as at Nile Inside and AdaptD :)
Charie Seals
October 21st, 2009
i really like the batman website. its very entertianing to me. i seen a couple mental errors, but overall, im loving it.
marie
November 2nd, 2009
Hello guys,
I would like to suggest that one which is minimalist and really nice too.
http://www.krispykrush.com/
Thank you,
Marie
Mike
March 26th, 2010
Here is a nice hot dark design http://www.gauntler.com.
Jonson
April 5th, 2010
interesting dark-colored web design http://www.seo-monitor.eu
Magician London
April 21st, 2010
I used to have a dark website but could never make it look that good – it always looked a bit miserable – so I changed it to a white background to be fresh. Looking at these I think I may change back to black!
Pix Place
September 20th, 2010
Title should be 50 websites with black in them and a few without
shah fahad
December 2nd, 2010
very nice collection of dark websites
Al
December 29th, 2010
Too much dark. Life is not so dark!
Martyn
January 25th, 2011
We’ve changed our design from dark to light and looking at these makes me wonder if we should have.
Excellent resource.
Fred
September 12th, 2011
Dark seems to be flavour of the year in web design, not that you can often get your average small to medium sized business to go that way. Some great work here – I’ve bookmarked it in my ‘Inspiration’ folder. Thanks for taking the time to build such a great collection.
Thirdsoul
October 13th, 2011
Amazing designs, lot of inspiration :)
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