Design Skills / researched taste reference / rev 3 · 26 Aug 2026

Websites can inhabit different worlds.

Not just “minimal”, “editorial” or “brutalist”. A website can feel like an arcade cabinet, an old operating system, a luxury magazine, a photocopied zine, a toy, a terminal, a pixel game, a scientific instrument or a living 3D world. This atlas is organised by visual taste, not trend vocabulary.

8major taste worlds
28distinct aesthetic families
50+references and archives
33pixel-art examples in One Page Love alone
01 / RAW WEB

Web-native, direct, unapologetic

The interface exposes structure instead of disguising it. Here live original brutalism, neo-brutalism, raw utility and developer-first visual language.
BuiltOnRails
Product brutalism

BuiltOnRails

open ↗

Dense utility, direct commands, compact navigation and almost no ornamental layer. A product-oriented brutalist reference rather than an art-school one.

denseutilitydirect
Craigslist
Raw web

Craigslist

open ↗

Information architecture is the aesthetic: links, hierarchy, density and defaults.

HTML-nativeunstyledfunctional
02 / EDITORIAL

Print thinking on a screen

Grid discipline, art direction and typography carry the experience. The sub-tastes range from Swiss rationalism to high-fashion editorial and Scandinavian calm.
Lundgren Lindqvist
Swiss / International

Lundgren+Lindqvist

open ↗

Strict grid, type hierarchy and contemporary studio restraint.

Muuto
Nordic minimal

Quiet spacing, subdued contrast and image-led Scandinavian restraint.

Kinfolk
Premium editorial

Kinfolk

open ↗

Magazine rhythm, high-end photography, serif presence and generous pauses.

Apple
Bento / product editorial

Modular product storytelling, large media and controlled visual hierarchy.

03 / DIGITAL NOSTALGIA

The screen remembers its past

Old machines and graphics become design material: bitmap pixels, desktop windows, CRT terminals, Y2K chrome and synthetic nostalgia.
Pixel Art examples
Pixel / bitmap

Pixel Art archive

33 examples ↗

Not merely retro. Bitmap type, hard pixel edges, sprite logic, limited palettes and game-era composition form a distinct visual system.

8-bitbitmap typesprites
Poolsuite
Retro OS

Poolsuite

open ↗

Classic Mac/Windows-like desktop UI becomes the whole product identity.

Windows93
Web OS / glitch nostalgia

WINDOWS93

open ↗

A fake operating system rather than a page: windows, apps, icons, boot states and surreal digital nostalgia.

Departure Mono
Terminal / lo-fi technical

Departure Mono

inspect ↗

Monospaced pixel typography, technical UI rhythm and intentionally low-fi digital texture.

Noomo pixels and glass
Y2K chrome / pixel-glass

Noomo case study

inspect ↗

Pixels mixed with glass, reflective 3D and digital-era sheen.

04 / GAME WORLDS

A website can be played, not browsed

Game taste is its own branch. Navigation may become movement, menus become HUDs, cards become inventory and feedback follows game rules rather than ordinary web conventions.
Bruno Simon
Playable 3D world

Bruno Simon

play ↗

The portfolio is a drivable game world. Navigation, physics, discovery and brand are one system.

gameplayThree.jsphysics
Rudolfs Rooftop Rampage
Arcade shell

Rudolf's Rooftop Rampage

inspect ↗

Pixel graphics, sound effects and an actual game inside a one-page shell.

27 Nerds
Esports / game UI

27 Nerds

inspect ↗

Pixel, esports and interactive easter eggs give the site the grammar of a game product.

Bitmap Typographer
Tool-as-game

Bitmap Typographer

inspect ↗

A creative tool whose interaction feels closer to a pixel editor/game mechanic than a form-driven app.

05 / MATERIAL UI

Interfaces that pretend to be objects

Here the visual language comes from physical material: glass, plastic, paper, clay, metal, bevels, shadows and tactile controls.
Apple Vision Pro
Spatial glass

Apple Vision Pro

open ↗

Transparency, blur, depth and spatial layering as an interface material.

Poolsuite
Skeuomorphic software

Poolsuite

open ↗

Windows, controls and media surfaces behave like remembered physical software objects.

Swapsmore
Soft playful / paper-like

Swapsmore

inspect ↗

Warm surfaces and friendly illustration create a soft, tactile emotional tone without glass or tech sheen.

06 / ILLUSTRATED + CULTURE

Borrowing from drawing, print and subculture

The page can feel hand-made, photocopied, stickered, illustrated, collaged or cartooned. These tastes communicate culture before they communicate software.
HeyFriends
Hand-drawn / scribble

HeyFriends!

inspect ↗

Scribbles and illustrated motion deliberately remove corporate polish.

Braindrop
Line illustration

Braindrop

inspect ↗

Thin-line illustration and wavy separators give a calm human tone.

Interactions 2.0
Maximalist web collage

Interactions 2.0

inspect ↗

Chaos, visual quotation, nostalgia and dense layered storytelling instead of restraint.

Pattern Breaking
Glitch / activist editorial

Pattern Breaking

inspect ↗

Pixel and glitch effects become part of a critical storytelling voice.

07 / IMMERSIVE

The page becomes a scene, system or performance

These sites are designed around time, movement and rendering: WebGL worlds, shader fields, scrollytelling, kinetic typography and physics-based interaction.
Bruno Simon
WebGL / 3D world

Bruno Simon

open ↗

A canonical example of the medium becoming the message.

Pattern Breaking
Scrollytelling

Pattern Breaking

inspect ↗

Scroll is used as narrative time rather than page movement.

Motion examples
Kinetic UI / motion-first

Motion examples

open ↗

Motion itself becomes the design language: transitions, stagger, layout movement and gesture.

Awwwards WebGL
Shader / generative / realtime

Awwwards WebGL pool

browse ↗

A research pool for realtime rendered sites, 3D graphics, shader surfaces and generative scenes.

08 / DATA + INSTRUMENT

Software that looks like an instrument

A different kind of beauty comes from precision: dashboards, maps, terminals, IDE-like layouts, metrics and control surfaces.
Linear
Precision software

Linear

open ↗

Dense information, exact spacing and micro-interaction polish create an instrument-like product feel.

Observable
Data-viz native

Observable

open ↗

Code, charts, notebooks and data are not decoration; they are the interface.

GitHub
Developer / IDE-adjacent

GitHub

open ↗

Tables, diffs, code, metadata and state labels create a developer-native visual grammar.

NEXT / EXPAND

Tastes still worth adding

This revision deliberately widens the map, but it is not finished. The next research pass should add dedicated families for anime/manga UI, comic-book UI, vaporwave/synthwave, CRT/cyberdeck, paper collage, zine/xerox, Memphis, clay/soft-3D, industrial UI, map-first interfaces, sci-fi HUD, monochrome, botanical/organic, solarpunk and painterly/watercolour web.