It may have been a reaction to the slickness of Web 2.0 glossy icons and reflections that kicked off a big trend for the sketchy, hand-drawn style web design. Done well, this style creates a tactile, artistic and somewhat home-made feel on web sites.
In many cases, the design elements are drawn on paper and scanned in, keeping a certain amount of roughness and texture in the process. Pencils, markers, pen and ink provide a unique and artistic touch.
I think this style works best when the designer throws themselves fully into it. What I mean by that is that the designer uses many hand-drawn elements: lines, doodles, sketchy fonts for headings, and not just use one element in isolation. This style certainly lends itself to a more personal feeling, that you won’t find on many of the big corporate sites.
So here’s a collection of ten websites which make excellent use of the hand-drawn style. Many, but not all are portfolio sites.
Sibling Rivalry uses images with a slightly retro look, handwritten fonts and little sketches around the site, on a textured paper background.
Dawghouse Design Studio is a mixture of doodles, textured papers and headings set using a sketchy typeface.
Mr A T-Shirts is a flash-based site and gives the appearance of back-to-basics pen drawing on a copy book.
From The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges’ web site is minimalist and looks like it has been hand-written almost in its entirety.
Grady McFerrin illustration style spills out onto the typography used on his website.
Frank PR looks like a large sheet of paper filled with information. Each section is clickable.
Web Designer Wall is well recognized as both a site filled with great information for designers, but also for its sketchbook style.
Tyler Gaw a New York based web-designer, has a colorful site with large hand-drawn lettering.
Red Nose Day combines handwritten text, hand-drawn lines, boxes and icons.
Legwork Studio’s site is black and white and doodled all over.
And that’s a wrap. This style is clearly not suitable for all kinds of web sites, but it brings a tangible, personal feel.
What do you think of this style? Do you think it’s time to move on, or is it something you’d like to see sticking around?
I love sketchy, grunge, or hand drawn stuff. Even though there’s it’s quite common now, I think it makes a site very personal feeling through it’s casual or even sometimes sarcastic nature. Plus, it’s waaaaay fun for the designer to make stuff like this ;)
July 10th, 2009 at 7:25 am
Sorry, bad grammar
*Even though it’s quite common now…
July 10th, 2009 at 7:27 am
He he … what’s “black and white and doodled all over” … sounds like a bad newspaper joke :)
July 10th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I did the drawings for this one, the line is
continuous across each section,
http://www.krups-canfar.com/
July 10th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
As a Designer, I really like these kind of stuffs in web design…It’s a real fun to design site with sketches, illustrations, grunge & hand drawn stuffs. I also agree that it’s common these days but the real challenge is to use these stuff in balance with your informative content.
One of my friend designed a site with heavy grunge and hand drawn stuffs for his portfolio but sadly the bounce rate of visitors was about to 50% (resulting in redesign process)
Hopefully this artistic trend will continue this year also
Thanks,
Atul Thanvi
Web Designer
July 10th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
I really like the sketched style, I’ve never done it in my work – but I hope to do it for my personal website. I like the red nose day site mixing the sketch style with a more corporate traditional layout.
July 10th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
I love this style!
The German telecommunication company o2 (http://www.o2online.de) started a campaign using sketchy style… “what’s in your mind when you are on the phone…”
See the commercial (in German):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syEb0DDjUgo
July 10th, 2009 at 11:39 pm
I personally love the style. Carsonified has always done a good job with it. I also found a local agency using the style very nicely (squarefactor).
July 11th, 2009 at 2:26 am
Love all of it so cool!!
July 13th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
really like the style displayed, very nice, cool
July 14th, 2009 at 1:46 am