CSS galleries can be a great source of inspiration, but if you’re looking for something in particular they can be a bit of a nightmare. They can also be a little repetitive, you’ll often find the same design repeated on many of the galleries.
Since niche galleries have a tighter focus it allows them to be more detailed when adding sites to the gallery, and although they don’t update as often the quality usually makes up for it. Given their focus the same design is a lot less likely to be featured on more than one of the niche galleries.
This is not to say the general galleries are going away, they provide a steady steam of inspiration, but when you’re looking for something in particular niche is nicer.
Below you’ll find a list of niche galleries, that focus on things from color schemes, to layout, and specific content types.
Color Schemes
Light On Dark
http://www.lightondark.com
Light on Dark is a showcase of well designed & coded web sites with light text on a dark background.
Online since January 2006, with approximately 1,000 items of inspiration.
CSS Nature
http://www.cssnature.org
CSS NATURE is a showcase of well designed css and xhtml nature based website designs.
Online since July 2007, with approximately 200 items of inspiration.
Layout
Design By Grid
http://www.designbygrid.com
Design By Grid is a resource to promote websites designed with grids, and the tools and techniques used to make websites with grids. You’ll find a gallery of great grid based designed, as well as links to tutorials and invaluable tools for anyone designing with grids.
Online since May 2007, with approximately 100 items of inspiration.
The Horizontal Way
http://www.thehorizontalway.com/
Most websites display their content vertically, making the user scroll down the page. In some rare cases however the website can be laid out horizontally making users scroll to the right instead, The Horizontal Way is showcase for just these sites. You won’t see to many of these sites, but if you do ever need to design a site that scrolls horizontally, this is the place to go for inspiration.
Online since November 2006, with approximately 40 items of inspiration.
No Resolution
http://www.cssliquid.com
There has long been a discussion on whether websites should be fixed in width or adjust to the size of the users browser. All arguments aside, see some great examples of fluid and elastic designs at No Resolution (formally called CSS Liquid). You’ll also find some resources and tutorials to help you make you next design fluid, or you can use some of the open source templates.
Online since November 2005, with approximately 300 items of inspiration.
Content
I Heart Blogs
http://www.iheartblogs.com
I Heart Blogs is a showcase of well designed and well written blogs.
Online since February 2008, with approximately 40 items of inspiration.
eduStyle
http://www.edustyle.net
eduStyle is a web design gallery dedicated to higher education websites and powered by higher education web design professionals.
Online since January 2007, with approximately 700 items of inspiration.
Carted Up
http://www.cartedup.com
Carted Up is a showcase of online stores, beautifully designed, and easy to operate.
Online since October 2007, with approximately 50 items of inspiration.
Feed My App
http://www.feedmyapp.com
A showcase of web based applications.
Online since June 2007, with approximately 2,500 items of inspiration.
Size
Full Single
http://www.fullsingle.com
Sometimes all you need is one page to convey our message, Full Single is a showcase of full websites that fit in a single page.
Online since January 2007, with approximately 200 items of inspiration.
One Page Folios
http://www.onepagefolios.com
Collection of one page portfolio by designers and developers.
Online since April 2006, with approximately 850 items of inspiration.
Geographic
CSS Design Yorkshire
http://www.css-design-yorkshire.com
Although not exclusively dedicated to the region, this gallery showcases web sites created by css web designers in the Yorkshire region of England.
Online since October 2006, with approximately 2,000 items of inspiration.
Oriental Gallery
http://oriental-gallery.com
For those designing for an oriental audience it may be helpful to view websites designed by oriental designers. Differentiated not just by language Oriental designers have different culture and experience than western designers.
Online since 2007, with approximately 60 items of inspiration.
Content Management Systems
WP Cube
http://wpcube.com
A showcase of the best designed WordPress sites.
Online since December 2007, with approximately 300 items of inspiration.
We Love WP
http://www.welovewp.com
Those WordPress users really like their CMS, another showcase of WordPress powered sites.
Online since June 2007, with approximately 350 items of inspiration.
We Love TXP
http://www.welovetxp.com
Not be left out users of TextPattern showcase their best sites.
Online since July 2007, with approximately 450 items of inspiration.
LoopPress
http://www.looppress.com
Had to sneak in one more WordPress showcase.
Online since November 2007, with approximately 400 items of inspiration.
Moveable Love
http://www.moveablelove.com
This is a place to show off interesting and beautiful sites built with Moveable Type.
Online since February 2008, with approximately 10 items of inspiration.
Web Development Frameworks
Drupal Sites
http://www.drupalsites.net/
A directory that lists websites powered by the open-source content management system Drupal.
Online since November 2005, with approximately 2,000 items of inspiration.
Happy Codr
http://happycodr.com
A showcase of websites built using the Ruby on Rails web development framework.
Online since November 2006, with approximately 700 items of inspiration.
Other
LogoPond
http://www.logopond.com
User submitted gallery of logos, with a hand selected collection of the best logos.
Online since July 2006, with approximately 20,000 items of inspiration.
IllyPads
http://www.illypads.com
A showcase of the best user submitted illustrations.
Online since March 2008, with approximately 100 items of inspiration.
CSS Princess
http://cssprincess.com
Website designed by Female designers are showcased at CSS Princess.
Online since July 2006, with approximately 200 items of inspiration.
Launching Soon Pages
http://launchsoon.com/gallery.php
A new gallery that showcases placeholder pages, for websites that have not launched yet.
Online since February 2008, with approximately 10 items of inspiration.
Business Cards
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dailypoetics/sets/72057594104389710/
A collection of inspiring business card designs.
Online since April 2006, with approximately 700 items of inspiration.
Colour Lovers
http://www.colourlovers.com
COLOURlovers gives the people who use color – whether for ad campaigns, product design, or in architectural specification – a place to check out a world of color, compare color palettes, submit news and comments, and read color related articles and interviews.
Online since December, 2004, with approximately 1,000,000 items of inspiration.
Elements of Design
http://www.smileycat.com/design_elements/
Elements of Design is a different type of web design showcase focusing on specific aspects of web design. It is brought to you by the Smiley Cat Web Design Blog.
Approximately 600 items of inspiration.
Typesites
http://www.typesites.com
Typesites is a weekly showcase of websites with interesting typographic design.
Online since January 2008, approximately 7 items of inspiration.
CSS Drive Menu Designs
http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/menudesigns/
A gallery of website menus.
Approximately 75 items of inspiration.
I’m sure there are a number of deserving niche galleries that I’ve missed, leave a comment and I’ll keep the list updated.
Gallery inspiration counts as at March 2008.
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You should also check out http://www.designflavr.com – it is great design and illustration! All quality stuff.
Super list, will always be in my bookmarks.
@Jacob: DesignFlavr seems like a great place for inspiration, but doesn’t appear to have a niche topic to warrant inclusion to the list.
@bVs: Thanks!
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What about CSS Zen Garden?
@Television Spy: I thought long and hard about adding CSS Zen Garden, one the original Galleries, but whilst very inspiring I didn’t see a niche that it served. It demonstrates the power of CSS very well, but in doing so it is a general design gallery.
Good list, but you forgot http://www.csshive.com
Hi Mabashar, thanks for the great list of resources. While this site is more generic, it’s good for creating images to use inside css: http://www.smashupgraphics.com. Hope you find it useful!
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@Adam: I didn’t forget CSSHive, its just not a niche gallery!
@Dave: That is a nice resource, but as you said not a niche gallery.
Great list. I’d like to mention my ‘Elements of Design’ gallery (http://www.smileycat.com/design_elements/) which showcases specific design elements. It’s definitely very niche!
@Christian: Very nice, I’ll add that to the list tonight.
http://www.designflavr.com is also pretty good
Great list, thanks for the heads up. will be a definiive bookmark.
Great list mubs thanks for the includes
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http://www.typesites.com is a great niche showcase for typographic designs.
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http://movablelove.com/ for movable type sites
What about Inspiration Folder(www.inspirationfolder.com)…it’s a very large gallery and I guess the niche would be the ability to save(store) the designs you like to look at later.
http://www.cssnature.org/
CSS Nature is a nature based CSS website Design Gallery.
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You gotta include http://www.typesites.com (focus on typography)
Great list, also like the design here.
http://www.cssuberclean.com only showcases very clean sites.
I Heart Blogs is one you did right? design and coded by you. That shouldnt be in the list as its just a site of yours that your trying to get traffic and clicks to.
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Thanks a lot for compiling this list Mubashar!
http://www.cssdrive.com/index.php/menudesigns/ is great for various menu designs.
@James: So just because I built the site means its not a niche gallery? So people should never link to work they have done from a blog post?
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@James that is such a ill reasoned and ill thought out statement, there are about 4 of his sites in this list if you were paying attention, you know why? Because he specializes in creating niche galleries, he didn’t ask for this post to get the attention it got, it just did because people like the content. If you are going to make statements like that please inform yourself first please.
http://www.cssartillery.com of course
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You should add http://www.bigowners.com too.
http://www.cssmoon.com is very nice..
http://www.urbantrash.net/cssgallery is also pretty good
Thank you for such a great list. I have been complaining that the top galleries that I usually visit aren’t great for inspiration on actual client work because they all seem to be web firm sites.
Again thanks so much tons of great inspiration.
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http://www.cssleak.com is an oriented colors and colors palette gallery.
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Explore Eco Sites .com is a niche gallery for eco-friendly / “green” topic web sites. Would love for you to add it!
Thanks!
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