Before we launch our analysis of 20 great custom website designs, we have to provide an answer to the very logical and basic question: Why is custom web design better?
There are numerous benefits to custom web design, but the most notable one is the fact that it’s a website perfectly tailored to represent your business. It is, in every way, YOUR website. A custom-made website will always be one of a kind, even if it has shortcomings, and other businesses that use already-seen templates will fall into oblivion. Although they can be effective and beautiful, it’s hard to stand out when you have a generic WordPress theme.
Also, you can rely on creative solutions to meet your brand's need during the design process. With pre-made templates, you don’t have many options and choices can be limited when you're trying to achieve specific goals. Not to mention that experienced designers know how to strike the perfect balance between client’s wishes and technical aspects, including SEO-friendly design, beautiful user interfaces and strong user experience.
The downside of custom website designs is only in their price. It will take more money to pay the designer to bring your creative vision to life than to install a WordPress theme. But nonetheless, a well-executed custom website will attract visitors, communicate with consumers, and has the potential to create conversions. Don't believe us? Check out these effective examples throughout many industries.
The Best Custom Website Designs Of 2018
1. Supremo Academy
Supremo Academy is a digital design and advertising academy geared towards educating young people. They are a great example of a self-conscious brand who understands its values and target audience, and they translated their mission and vision to their website design.
Motion graphics, color gradients, custom animations, and everything else about this website is customized to emphasize their values. From loading screen messages to the rest of custom-made graphics, Supremo Academy aims to engage website visitors and turn them into customers.
The single-page website is good for leading people towards an end goal and presenting the whole story from the beginning to the end. In fact, we analyzed Supremo Academy’s website even further.
2. NerdWallet
NerdWallet is a very organized platform that helps you find the best credit card, enhances your credit score, achieves zero debt and saves money. But, we won’t delve too much on the benefits of the service NerdWallet brings. Instead, we will analyze their custom website design.
We can see that the platform emphasizes its service through custom images and icons, favoring the flat design. It’s minimalistic, clean, but also colorful and quirky... just enough to stand out and pull the customers in.
Plus, discover the best mobile banking app features for Android and iPhone users on DesignRush!
3. Alfa Romeo
Apart from the innovative car design, Alfa Romeo’s custom website perfectly sums up company’s values and the brand image they want to portray. When you land on the website, the first thing that crosses your mind is the sense of luxury. Users immediately notice the clean design that perfectly mimics their product design as well.
The website is full of buttons, clickable icons, sliders, interesting breadcrumbs and minimalistic copy. It’s clear that Alfa Romeo wants you to interact with their website and find the right transportation solution. This level of customization and personalization yields great results both in revenue and customer engagement.
4. USPS
When you have a complex service that reaches so many customers like USPS, pre-made templates just aren’t a feasible possibility. Such value-added services require a completely custom website design, and USPS did it quite well. Mailing, shipping, even passport applications are all made possible with the online service.
When it comes to website design and custom-made elements, USPS uses a great color scheme that corresponds to brand colors: gray and navy blue. The red color is cleverly utilized for notices and alerts. The website is filled with custom icons, buttons, and clickable elements. The fonts are used to accentuate the important information.
5. Amazon
Amazon makes shopping simple, and while it’s not a website with the prettiest design layout, it’s still the most important e-commerce custom website design. Once you create a service people have grown to rely on, it’s hard to scale the website to a modern design. For example, during that maintenance, Amazon might lose a lot of business.
While it’s not the most modern website design, Amazon still has a couple of aces up its sleeve. This custom website design has a neatly organized product layout and uses machine learning to personalize suggestions to each and every user. This helps to increase Amazon’s revenue by allowing customers to order related items without needing to search for them, showcasing efficiency and great user interface at its best.
If you want to see what are the top 10 mobile e-commerce websites that make online shopping easy and fun (including Amazon), check out our in-depth analysis in DesignRush's Trends & Insights section.
6. Oceana’s Stop Overfishing
Oceana is fighting for a noble cause, but they also use the full power of a custom-created website to do so. The interactive and mesmerizing home page will immediately capture website visitors. Oceana uses several website design elements that increase user engagement and on-page metrics. If you turn up the volume, you will hear the beautiful ocean white noise.
The loading screen is filled with important facts. While website users wait, they can learn more about Oceana’s cause. Did you know that 96 percent of Mediterranean is overfished? Before visiting Oceana’s website, we didn’t either. The menu is state of the art on its own. It's neatly organized and immersive. Whenever you click on a menu item, it will expand to the right, and provide enough information.
Through gamification - login, data collection and the ability to add a fish to the website, Oceana is increasing engagement. Since designers used the beautiful blue and purple color schematics for website design, and color gradient necessary for accurate ocean depiction, this website falls under the education and non-profit industry, as well as the gradient website design.
7. Gogoro
User-friendly design and an environmentally-friendly cause meet in a deep scroll homepage that captures user’s attention right from the start. Gogoro is an eco-friendly scooter that is powered by electricity. With such an amazing product, this brand perfectly uses a custom built website for storytelling and delivering a point. Colorful, sleek, minimal and captivating.
Gogoro cleverly uses custom icons, motion graphics, various counters (distance, CO2, batteries swapped), playful contrasts with the concise copy. Think Apple but with plenty of colors. It’s easy to get immersed in the brand narrative with such a pleasant color scheme that uses light blue, green, pink and purple, and everything in between.
8. Netflix
Top 20 custom made website design list couldn’t go with the entertainment and streaming platform giant – Netflix. The best thing about Netflix is that it’s intuitive and provides users with exactly what they need. While the design is custom, the personalization element adds a lot of value to user experience. It clearly states that we are talking about a brand who cares about its users and their user experience. Netflix carefully selects the shows you watch, the shows that might be interesting, and new titles just waiting to be discovered.
Personalization in web design is a hot topic and it’s here to stay – it simply leads users more effectively through website content, and thus increases engagement and revenue. Learn more about personalization in website design here.
9. The Knot
Wedding planning can be hectic, so it’s a relief when you can use an online planning platform and get everything ordered. The Knot offers such a service, and then some. Through online quizzes, in-depth blog posts about wedding planning and online wedding gift registry, The Knot ties all knots.
With so many moving parts that comprise a wedding, The Knot needed a custom-built website that will allow users to accomplish their goals. Even though the idea behind is quite complicated, the layout is refreshingly simple and intuitive. The Knot guides you through the website and their services effortlessly.
When it comes to custom website elements, there is nothing more custom-made than purposeful videos. Add light icons, different types of fonts and you have a winner in custom website platform design.
10. NYT Cooking
New York Times Cooking platform is a perfect custom website design example for great imagery aesthetics packed in a flavor-inducing design. You have savory food, what better way to display it than through artful photography?
The typography used on the website creates a perfect balance between New York Times’ professional approach to cooking and light and playful foodie community. Each content section invites users to pitch in and engage with the brand.
Overall, the website is intuitive and authoritative at the same time, with plenty of sleek and modern elements that break the mold of a traditional news reporting style. We have really paid a lot of attention to researching NYT Cooking website design, and you can see our results here.
11. Baha Mar
It’s a shame to have a luxury resort in the middle of the Caribbean and not do it justice with an equally impressive website design. Luckily, Baha Mar understood this perfectly and provided a great user experience and online representation. Through the simple color scheme, plenty of white negative space and colorful yet serene images, it’s easy to fall into summer vibes just by browsing the website.
The website is filled with plenty of elements that beg for user’s attention. It’s easy to picture a vacation in the Bahamas with such a splendid and aesthetic website design. Website elements include sliders, galleries, easily accessible buttons for booking, and artful pictures.
The typeface has a lovely shade between gray and blue, and headers are bolded with beautiful gold hues. It gives off a luxury feel without it being too tacky.
12. Buffy
How to make mattresses cool? It’s tough but not impossible – just look how Buffy managed to do it. When you open their website, you will immediately notice happy people, motion graphics and hip illustrated elements that add quirkiness and sweetness to a boring product.
The typography is switched all the time depending on the section of the website. There is one font for the buttons, the other, bolded for the headings, another one for the menu… Gradient colors pull you in as you scroll down, utilizing soft hues of pink, orange and green. The illustrations though add a playful note to the whole experience. All moving parts speak volumes about web design’s creativity while not detracting from the lightness and intuitive user interface.
13. Brontide
What to do when your sole manufacturing process involves just one chemical substance? You would expect a dry website with the professional copy. Perhaps a photo or two. However, Brontide took another approach and that is why it deserves a spot on our list.
Crist and clean design dominated by plenty of white negative space let the information breathe, and makes it easier to read. Green color accentuates the fact that butylene glycol is an organic chemical that has numerous benefits if harvested properly. Since there’s controversy about the substance, Brontide used their online real estate to educate people further.
They mostly use video elements perfectly embedded with the rest of the website design. Bold and black sans-serif fonts add a dose of relentless authority. This manufacturing industry custom web design has a lot to offer to its customers.
14. Filema Rodion
An organic food product that has roots in a traditional meal requires a website that will pay homage to the ancestry but also displays the ability to keep up with the modern times. Filema Rodion understood this perfectly, and the result is their captivating website.
Filema Rodion uses doodled elements, moving sliders comprised of many moving parts that complete the final picture. Apart from the moving parts, they also use some parallax elements, banners, motion graphic, and more. The typography is very clean and neat when we look at the main navigation, blogs, and buttons. Too light and sleek, even. Lines are thin, and the information is highlighted with just a darker or lighter black.
However, when we look at the product displays, lines are contrastingly thicker, heavier, following the bold fonts. The copy is minimalistic as well, making the text on the website carefully selected but impactful.
15. Lensabl
When you need some help to achieve 20/20 vision, you usually have to deal with retailers, labs and spend plenty of money in the process. Usually, getting your lenses can’t be done online. Until Lensabl came along. Such an innovative service deserves a worthy online representation. Apart from the homepage and an obviously very happy person wearing their glasses, the rest of the website is filled with custom drawings.
The colors are modern and matte, with light green dominating the accents and backgrounds. Alternating between the white negative space and off-white, various information is accentuated with ease. The long scroll homepage expertly guides the users through all the steps necessary to get your new glasses delivered straight to your home. This way of storytelling works wonders for sales funnel and buyer’s journey.
16. Eurovet
Eurovet is a business that sells veterinary supplies for the past 20 years, and they use a data-driven approach to their web design to keep up with the current trends. Still paying homage to the year when they started operating, Eurovet’s design team wanted to honor the traditional times, while using the modern elements. This blend is tricky, but in their example, executed with perfection.
The result is a clean, modern website, that gives off a scientific vibe. The green color highlights the organic approach of the blend and connects them to nature. While there aren’t many moving elements, those that persist capture all attention.
17. Desires Tram
The real estate market is huge, and we aren’t even talking about sales – considering the technology that real estate companies use, from FLIR sensors, drone footage, aerial videos to 3D home tours. Desires Tram went back to the beginning and brought us their custom-made retro website design. It’s funny to claim that retro is innovative, but they clearly stand out from the competition.
This custom-created website uses motion animation, clever retro graphics, and captivating music. Every page has different moving parts, which makes this website come to life and portray a playful energy. Sometimes the absence of expected elements can elevate the experience – Tram did it by omitting the menu completely. If you want to get around the website, you have to play along.
18. Barisieur
A colorful approach can be playful and fun, but monochromatic resurfaces powerful emotions about the brand. When you are a company that sells tea and coffee brewing alarm clock, powerful is the adjective you want by your side. Another great fact about their monochromatic approach is that it completely aligns with their product design.
To break that composition, Barisieur adds videos that captivate and increase user engagement. For a product that walks the thin line between traditional use and innovative product. This custom made design was almost necessary. Especially because the product consists of very intricate and specific materials. The best way to do them justice is to use a custom website from the beginning.
19. SeaStreak
A high-speed ferry service deserves a high-speed website and custom-made elements. Since the brand takes immense pride in creating a luxury experience for their travelers, they found a perfect way to portray that with their custom website. We must point out great user interface, since Seastreak offers many destinations, and that could have been hectic to navigate through.
When you offer a product or a service, you need to make the purchase as easy as possible, and that is exactly what Seastreak did with their clean website design. Through powerful imagery, this brand captured all their values – safety, luxury, modern transportation and fun experience.
20. Jannata
Jannata is a luxury spa and boutique resort service in Bali. This sentence alone sets the bar high because we expect a lavish custom-created website from the get-go. The brand perfectly captured the serenity, setting the tranquil pace with its intuitive navigation. Even the color palette and gradients help users find peace, just by scrolling around their website. The layout is innovative and attention-grabbing.
Jannata uses powerful background images that add depth to the text in front. Instead of openly boasting about their lavishness, like the most Bali resorts do, this brand uses the natural luxury of Bali and just accentuates the natural design. This way, that luxury is subtly hinted with monochromatic elegant hues of the color palette.
What Custom Web Designs Can Teach Other Brands
The results are in – custom website design gives you the freedom to portray your brand without confining, pre-set website elements. It’s a blank canvas where you can let your creativity soar – a tool that is bound to make you stand out among competitors. If done by experts, custom-made websites have a cleaner and leaner code, fast loading speed. That is why custom websites cost much more. But paying the price to have a memorable website that perfectly aligns with the brand values and sometimes, even the product design is worth it. The price is known, but the results are priceless.
If you need help with designing a perfect fit for your brand, we have a ready list of complete professionals who use their creativity to bring the best online presence to the world. If you need to start with a brand new logo and identity design, then choose between logo and branding agency listings.
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