When I start a new web design project I try to find inspiration taking a look on the best galleries saved in the bookmarks of my browser. Generally this operation have a good impact in my design process, often I find excellent websites, made by great web designer, that inspire me. It isn’t a trite thing, in fact scrolling many galleries we can find useful informations about the last trends in web design, good design solutions and particular layouts, discovering new CSS and JavaScript techniques too.

During my research I select and bookmark some good websites which impress me. After I sketch a general wireframe, focalized on the resolution of my particular problem (such us the strange requests of crazy clients), and then it can begin the work with Photoshop. This is, generally, the inceptive routine.

You may be interested in the following related articles as well.

• Single Page Website Designs For Design Inspiration
• 60+ Amazing Examples Of Illustrative Web Designs
• How to Create A Better Online Portfolio
• 55 Sexy Our Work Page Designs
• 50+ Beautiful Website Designs Using Office Stationery
• Grid Style In Modern Web Design: Showcase and Resources
• 80+ Perfect Ending of Modern Website Design- Footers!

Feel free to join us and you are always welcome to share your thoughts that our readers may find helpful.

Don’t forget to subscribe to our RSS-feed and follow us on Twitter — for recent updates.

Music Inspiration Behind a Web Design Work

A my dear friend, in one of our discussions about web design, suggests me “try to use off-line inspiration, listening music for example. You could build pretty original web design.”
I initially am wary. Then a client asks me a website for a Blues Band. So I say to myself “We can try!”

Final Result

I have build a website layout (Called Vince Vega) using the inspiration simply induces from music. Below you can see the final result.

In this article I want to explain how music has inspired this layout. I will describe the design process step-by-step making clear which songs I listened for each phase. This kind of work usually requires 60 – 120 min. and the timing of the following tracklist covers 70 – 90 minutes, but during the development of the design I have heard twice some tracks.

Working on concept

It’s important to listen some songs of the band for understanding the genre. Well, they are a blues band with some nuances of jazz, great music in my opinion. So, get in the zone.

• B.B. King – The Thrill is Gone
• Sonny Boy Williamson II – Your Funeral and My Trial
• The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Take Five
• Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong – Summertime

Hearing the first tracklist I decide the color, “deep” dark blue, I want a dreamy atmosphere in a nocturne sky, using some “grunge” elements, but holding a clean and readable layout.

The power of music… four songs that inspire good ideas. Fantastic!

Sketch and wireframe

Now I need energy to start the work. I want rock songs. Sure, it’s strange to pass from trumpet and voice of Louis Armstrong to the sound of “modern” rock, but I risk of dreaming too long, I should work.

• Blur – Song 2
• R.E.M. – Losing my Religion
• Dire Straits – Sultans of Swing

In my mind the goal is clear, for this reason it isn’t difficult to draft a simple wireframe on my block-note. I want a simple layout that emphasizes the communicative power of the blues and of the jazz.

Below it’s possible to see the first sketch.

Now I can start the work from scratch in Photoshop, holding in my mind the main guidelines.

The Background, a dreamy atmosphere

In this step I want to create the basis to recreate the nocturne sky, remembering that the main topic of the website is the music of a band.
The following tracklist help during this stage.

• Pink Floyd – The Great Gig in The Sky
• Eric Clapton – Layla (Unplugged)
• John Miles – Music (was my first love)
• Muse – Showbiz

I use a dark layer of background (#000) and draw a large, round, gradient (with The Gradient Tool in Photoshop) from #113567 color to #000 on a new layer.

Over these layers I create a texture layer, using this picture, and now I can add a photo with a guitar. Both the layers need an opportune blending mode and some adjustment layers.

Now it’s time to arrange the idea of sky using the Stars_brush by anaRasha and Clouds II Photoshop Brushes by redheadstock.

A little tip. I add a new clipping mask layer above the clouds layers that contains a photo (I set the blending mode luminosity and an opportune opacity).

Making the header, logo and some grunge elements

Blues is famous for the “blue note” (the “worried” note), a note played at a slightly lower pitch than that of the major scale for expressive purposes. It is almost “discordant”, but it makes a great emotive impact.

I try to reproduce this concept using some grunge elements in the header.

• Dick Dale & The Del Tones – Misirlou
• Pearl Jam – Alive
• Jethro Tull – Living In The Past
• Frank Zappa – The Central Scrutinizer and Joe’s Garage

First of all I make a simple logo using a sans serif font and a “grunge” font for the subtitle. I also apply a particular style to the text layers using Drop Shadow, Gradient Overlay and Stroke.

The right side of the header is perfect to add the “grunge elements”. I make use of the cut and paste technique to put in Polaroid picture, plectrums and the tag. I generally find the images at Stock.Xchng.Hu. The decorations on the background are created using Musik Brush by Rozairo.

Adding the menu I have the following result for header.

Down Header, large typography and a nice photo-effect

The client has done the explicit request for a direct promotional message including a large photo of the front man and some other images in the home page. Perfect, music!

• Pink Floyd – Money
• The Police – Message in a Bottle
• The Stranglers – Golden Brown
• B.B. King & Buddy Guy – I Can’t Quit You Baby

I create a large box for the direct promotional message in which I can use a large typography and recall some elements of the header, such as Polaroid pictures and plectrum.

Now I must add the photo of the singer and saxophonist of the band (in our fictitious example, Vince Vega). I want an image that is perfectly immersed in overall design. I isolate the man shape from a photo of the subject using the Pen Tool of Photoshop (for the article I use a sample image from Stock.Xchng.Hu). For my aim I create a first layer, applying an opportune style to create a glow effect around the musician with a fill of 60-70%, under this I insert a second layer, in this case I apply the Gaussian Blur Filter. At the end add a blue Photo Filter for both the layers.
Below you can see the result.

Main Content and Footer

The hard work is ended, and to conclude the design I need a cheerful tracklist.

• Beach Boys – Come Go With Me
• Beach Boys – Kokomo
• Queen – Crazy Little Thing Called Love
• Franz Ferdinand – Walk Away

In this last step of my design process I add the content in the right side. The choice of placing the content on right is aimed to highlight the promotional message because the updates of contents will not be frequent.

I end with a simple footer that futures social media links and online activities of the band, to separate the sections I use a bevel effect.

Personal Considerations

This was a simple experiment for improving my experience using a different kind of inspiration. Finally I am satisfied for the result (personal opinion). Sure, it is only a first part of a work and during the other steps, such us the hand-coding or the testing; probably we need maximum concentration and silence. However I’m really surprised of making a website layout in Photoshop without on-line inspiration, exclusively using the sensations induced from the music. It’s a very nice thing.

You can listen to the complete playlist on my Blip Account.

You can also download the complete layered PSD Template, but you can use the file only to learn more about the Photoshop tips used to build this layout. It is a work that I made for a local web agency, so I can allow a personal use of this file, exclusively for learning.

Website Designs Showcase for Music, Musicians and Bands

01. Banda Gozz

Official Link

02. Kim Richardson Music

Official Link

03. Ryan Edgar Music

Official Link

04. Jared Campbell

Official Link

05. The Blizzards

Official Link

06. Dirty Pretty Things Band

Official Link

07. Suie Paparude

Official Link

08. Kid Rock

Official Link

09. Francesca Battistelli

Official Link

10. Darry Lworley

Official Link

11. Selina Herrero

Official Link

12. Rocket Club

Official Link

13. Carl Cartee

Official Link

14. Michale Graves

Official Link

15. Gary Nock

Official Link

16. The Trian Woodburns

Official Link

17. Remedy Drive

Official Link

18. Robert Henry

Official Link

19. Faust Again

Official Link

20. Dalek Deadverse

Official Link

21. Diego Diaz

Official Link

22. Trevor Exter

Official Link

23. Gesine Nowakowski

Official Link

24. The Cello Studio of Ryan Sweeney

Official Link