Explicit Grid-based Website Designs: Showcase and Practice

• 6 minutes READ

Nowadays, the majority of website designs are based on grids; days of chaotic layouts are gone, and today is the era of ordering and structuring, although it is invisible to the naked eye. Such layouts are well-balanced, and, as a rule, aesthetic and neat. Grid frameworks that are the basis of all modern sites do all the work, providing the end-user with perfect undistorted design.

Although the grid is generally associated with no more than just a simple intersection of horizontal and vertical lines with a specified interval that would hardly seem to bear any independent decorative component, many designers use it as an embellishment with obvious underlining of geometric shapes. We are accustomed to see clear grids in galleries sections, blogs, news-related websites, but sometimes skillfully treated grids draw users’ attention on websites dedicated to portfolios or other creative websites. And it’s not surprising since besides of general advantages that related to functional side such as:

  • creating visual paths in order to direct people;
  • demonstrating sorted data;
  • combining different components together, and at the same time, leaving them as independent units,

it also plays the role of good pedestal for demonstrating the full beauty of straight lines.

In our showcase, you will find appealing website designs with skillfully implemented grids that can be easily detected by the unaided eye.

Grid-based Website Designs Examples

Spazio Dipaolo divides the main page into equal, square, slightly darken cells which represent images of different portfolio artworks.

Spazio Dipaolo

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Bernd Kammerer has a 3-columned layout; each column has its own image flow, demonstrating various bright shots. Furthermore, red circular links to other image series alternately appear while you are scrolling through the site.

Bernd Kammerer

Adam Hayes orderly shows off spectacular artworks, full of color and graphics.

Adam Hayes

Necto utilizes unequal, but rather balanced grid in order to shed a light on previous works, using size of a cell in order to put emphasis on an item. The bigger size, the more complicated work is.

Necto

Salon is another good example of using uneven grid, where location of rows varies depending on the column.

Salon

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Christmas Gifs leverages clear well-proportioned grid that includes varied animated gifs dedicated to Christmas.

Christmas Gifs

Activation Group does a great job of using dark color palette, specifying every cell with its own shade. Such diverse and at the same time restricted color utilization adds to a home page a slight chessboard feeling.

Activation Group

Portal Portinari is a fully animated website that includes timeline in order to show different artist masterpieces via grid-based gallery, which occupies the entire first page.

Portal Portinari

Candy Buffet takes on modern clean and clear flat style, spicing up plain geometric shapes with bright colors.

Candy Buffet

Betel Bar and Kitchen recreates strong feelings by neatly-organized landing page which harmoniously brings together images and text blocks.

Betel Bar and Kitchen

RVLT represents home page as a meld of navigation links and store items that have been enclosed in rectangular shapes with variable location.

RVLT

Stefan Froescher is a standard left-sided portfolio that welcomes its users with ordinary image gallery.

Stefan Froescher

Jean-Georges has an exciting huge photo-based navigation system that is realized by means of grid.

Jean-Georges

SilkTricky divides each cell in a half in order to clarify both visual and content aspects of an issue. Moreover, designer adds a couple of big square-shaped sliders that make a grid to look slightly heterogeneous.

SilkTricky

Bastian Preussger looks rather enigmatic and peculiar due to black one-colored background and moderately obfuscated grid, which showcases artworks in miniatures.

Bastian Preussger

Daniel Vane plays heavily on black-and-white color scheme and grid in order to make a website look clean and accurate.

Daniel Vane

Rosas and Co Films AG utilizes a common approach of sorting video miniatures by filters demonstrating results via grid system.

Far From the Tree fills the whole main page with miniatures that all together form a perfect detailed grid, though a website has a rather heavy and messy outward.

Far From the Tree

Boomerang 2013 has a truly explosion atmosphere. The whole design focuses on users, engaging them in unique and spectacular animations that have been stuffed into the grid.

Boomerang 2013

Bobby Digital Studios does a good job of using all power of gallery component, instantly familiarizing users with their works that are orderly and accurately placed. showcased via grid.

Bobby Digital Studios

Hommard has a modern sophisticated look. Website is mainly based on grid and a bunch of high-quality photos.

Hommard

National Traveller is a conventional well-structured blog with a great deal of rectangular-shaped functional blocks.

National Traveller

My Poor Brain wonderfully utilizes narrow-column grid in order to show as much information as possible.

My Poor Brain

Nowy Teatr adds a bit of chaos using different intervals between rows and columns.

Nowy Teatr

Woodwork Amsterdam represents visual data in columns, harmoniously eliminating use of lines. Such method allows to better showcase huge photos.

Woodwork Amsterdam

Karl Anders has a fresh vibe with a lot of blank space. Designer harmoniously divides layout into 4 columns, filling each cell with huge title or descriptive image.

Karl Anders

Reflection

Grid is an integral design tool that easily turns chaos into order, and in website design, such ability is really important. Majority of ordinary users wants to get information easily and quickly and there’s no better way to provide them with data than represent it in well-organized structure. But this doesn’t mean that website appearance has to be plain and insipid. Even simple geometric shapes that are skillfully diluted with colors, images and graphics can be overwhelming and truly attractive. Moreover, explicit grid-based design perfectly fits into any type of website whether it’s an online magazine or creative portfolio.

So, what do you think of grid-based website designs?  Does such explicit and intentional division into cells look appealing? Is it appropriate for creative designs? Or such an approach is more suitable for blogs, online magazines and news-oriented websites?

Nataly Birch

Nataly is an exceptional web designer and developer with a master's degree in computer science. She is highly skilled in helping clients establish a strong online presence and achieve their digital marketing goals across various sectors, including email design, email marketing, and web development. Nataly remains at the forefront of the industry by staying updated with the latest trends through continuous learning.

Posts by Nataly Birch