I’ve seen a lot of designs lately experimenting with large type, and with the right choice of font, contrast and whitespace they look great.
Check out this inspirational list of typographic based designs that I’ve put together.
1. Pallian Creative
2. Legistyles
3. Ben Lind
4. Made by Cool
5. Lorem Ipsum
6. Typechart
7. Elysium Burns
8. Crowley Webb
9. Alpha Multimedia
10. Astheria
11. The Typographic Desk Reference
12. Giant Creative
13. I Love Typography
14. FL2
15. Futon Media
Further reading
Any good ones I missed?
Want to read more?
- Inspiration from Packaging
- Redesigning WebDesignire – a showcase of Irish web design
- Web Design Trends: Designing Out Of The Box
Psst! We're hiring an Interaction Designer at Kareo. Click here if interested.
Chris Colhoun says:
Some Beautiful sites, I really love good typography on the web.
I tried to design http://chriscolhoun.com around typography, But using CSS Code rather than images. Different users may get different experiences but ideally on a Mac using Firefox or Safari you should get the richest view of the site!
Great post Lee
itsdavidhughes says:
Legistyles is stunning.
http://live.squarespace.com/ Would’ve made my list (if I had one)
;) Nice post Lee.
Christopher Murphy says:
Some lovely sites there. Astheria in particular is very, very nice. Proof that some well-crafted typography, an understanding of the grid and a little white space can go a long way. (I seem to recall that combination mentioned in a lecture…!)
krys locksman says:
Very nice list here and I couldn’t agree more! My favorites are Elysium and Giant, love the bold and flavorful palettes.
Lee says:
@itsdavidhughes: That is very cool. I like the way they’ve done their life streams
@Christopher: You’re right, all the sort of cool stuff one can expect from IMD and the Multidisciplinary Design Masters
@krys: Thanks Krys!
Chris Wallace says:
Rockin’. Would’ve loved to see a few more. I like Design Workplan.
lewro says:
Nice list! My favourite is Typechart. Thanks for sharing Lee.
itsdavidhughes says:
@Chris Loving Design Workplan.
Of course neither of us are forgetting The Grid System right?
insic says:
awesome!
Sander says:
@Chris Wallace, thanks for mention, appreciated!
Great list Lee, good luck with your website.
Heather says:
I’ve always loved the look of Astheria and, of course, I love typography has always been a favorite, but found some new ones thanks to this post! Thanks for sharing!
Webmasterish says:
I like!
JWG says:
Nice collection!
Melinda says:
I agree! They do look great and have an entirely different and clean feel to them. These site examples remind me of the print work that I do as far as experimentation with larger type and whitespace. I’m very fond of clean, crisp design whether it be web or print. I suppose I’m just in love with the written word, so type experimentation in any form catches my attention. =)
Also, I took a look at your work as well and I do have to say that you have a beautiful portfolio. It’s definitely one of the strongest that I’ve seen and it shows a vast range of your skills. I would be very proud if I were you! =)
Macarne says:
Wow looks so great, what just a few nice letters can do !
CSSJockey says:
Amazing websites, this list will keep me busy for sometime for sure.
Stephen Costello says:
Cool sites Lee, #14 is so simple but looks great. I’m hopefully gonna redevelop my own site along those lines.
Creamy CSS Showcase says:
Great inspirational list! Thanks for post ;)
Ed Hardy says:
Great collection of really impressing and inspiring pages. Thank you!
AlfredN says:
Astheria and Ben Li’s websites are my favorite of the bunch; nice one +bookmarked.
chu says:
Some typographically inspired design at http://artrocker.com also.
Lee says:
@Melinda: Yeah I definitely think there’s inspiration there from print work, which is great to see
@Stephen: look forward to seeing the new site
Thanks for all the comments and it’s my pleasure to share some creative work
Jorge says:
Great typo sites, we love big typographies, maybe our website looks fine too
Ben Tyers says:
Interesting stuff
Ioanis says:
Fantastic list! Particularly like Ben Lind’s website.
Freelance Web Designer says:
that was really beautiful collection ,
I love typography , and I like to apply it to my designs always.
Jeremy says:
Oh noes! The last example uses a boring apostrophe (‘), which is U+0027. Real typographists use the proper apostrophe (’), which is U+2019.
According to Unicode, U+2019 is “the preferred character to use for apostrophe”.
Lee says:
@Jorge: Nice site, loving the handdrawn look
@Jeremy: Interesting point, didn’t know that. What’s the difference then when inputting using your keyboard?
Jeremy says:
Well, all keyboards that I’m aware of use the normal apostrophe (U+0027) when you hit the button. (Except I believe the Spanish keyboard does another apostrophe that is different yet again.)
It’s normally something that would be picked up by your software. I know OpenOffice.org and MS Word will convert a normal apostrophe to a curly apostrophe if smart quotes are turned on, and WordPress also does this automatically (it calls it “texturizing”).
Most people that I see coding curly quotes in will enter the HTML entity manually. I don’t know the entity number off by heart, but you can find it in charmap (in GNOME’s charmap, at least).
Alisa Rogers says:
I am very thankful to you for provide me this valuable resource.
stsoftware says:
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Dre says:
Thanks for this ideas
Kate says:
I Liked Made by Cool. It proves that great ideas – are simple. :)
shellie says:
nice collection. I too am a big fan of whitespace, it often speaks the loudest.
ทีวีออนไลน์ says:
it so beautiful, thank it is new idea.
leah says:
thanks for this list. they are all very good and inspiring. i enjoy type design so much… more than anything. really. lol
Webdesigning says:
Nice list. Hopefully more designers than programmers are reading it. In my experience, it’s usually the web designers that resist and oppose usability centered ideas. They seek to glorify the site’s appearance, setting aside the user experience.
Jon says:
Nice examples. I love how simple yet elegant typography can be when used well.