Music web sites have evolved over time to become one of the most diverse and creative genres of web designs. Every website is unique, has its own purpose, and speaks to its audience in a different way.

For web designers, one factor that must always be kept in mind is the target audience of the site you are designing. If you make a music layout for a business site, you’ll end up with problems. This post is an extensive, growing collection of music sites that do a wonderful job of designing for their audience. Every element is targeted to help each site achieve some sort of goal – whether it be ad clicks, CD sales, MP3 downloads, or newsletter subscriptions.

Web Design Trends In Music Sites

As you browse this gallery, there will no doubt be some trends that start to arise between this very diverse set of sites. First, and most notably, is the use of flash. More and more sites are using flash to create that “wow” effect to help lure potential customers into the site.

Second, is the prominence of sound clips that play when the page loads. To most designers, this is a no-no that is an automatic turn-off. However, when keeping in mind the audience of the site, these sound clips help to give viewers a taste of what product they are looking at.

Third, splash pages have taken a rise in the music industry. As a portal into the actual website, these splash pages serve the purpose of drawing viewers in by showcasing their best content, sound clips, pictures, and videos. Like the second trend, splash pages are generally bashed by the design industry, but again, keep in mind the audience of each site.

Finally, another trend that seems to be taking a rise is abstract content organization. Instead of being confined to grids, tables, columns, and rows, many music sites are breaking the mold by using more images, video, artwork, and random text placement. This trend has allowed the online music industry to become one of the most diverse and creative sectors of the web design world.

Note: More sites will be added over time, so check back later if you’re looking for more inspirational music websites.

Inspirational Music Websites

Here is the showcase of the most inspirational music websites. While browsing these sites, keep in mind content organization, layout, and audience.

Pandora

Pandora’s internet radio service is very simplified in its design. The left side of the screen is devoted towards music, the right side towards ads. This creates a good balance between content and images.

Salted Soul

Salted Soul uses a paper-style design with strips of paper as the navigation and what appears to be a poster with lists of dates. Salted Soul starts playing music upon load.

Imaginex Studios

This visually oriented site uses flash to create a new type of visual navigation that uses floating orbs. Each orb is directed to a new page. Imaginex also has a music player in the lower right to give sound samples to visitors.

Celine Dion

Celine Dion’s website uses the top portion to advertise her latest CD and the middle to showcase pictures and the site navigation. She also has music playing on the site in a noticeable area so people can at least pause it if they aren’t interested in listening.

Double Punkt

Even though I can’t read it, Double Punkt’s website is very creative and original by organizing the homepage like a comic book with handwritten fonts and a music player that blends in to the content.

Beta Clan

Another flash site, Beta Clan offers a cut up map that, on hover, reveals the site’s navigation. To some, this can be very visually appealing and cool, but to others it takes to long to find information and relevant content.

Rihanna Now

Rihanna’s site showcases a picture of herself, a video in the middle of the content, and an ad for her CD in the right sidebar. This is a very simplified site that gives off the essence of her music and style.

Less The Band

Less The Band shows visitors a list of their songs that can be played on click. This allows visitors to find songs that they like and streamlines the purchasing process. A sleek top navigation makes finding the way around the site a breeze.

Lavitae Media

This centered design offers a splash page for navigation deeper into the site. This design is simple and clean and offers music demos and record information right at the top of the page for easy access.

Year of The Gentleman

Featuring a prominent background image, Year Of The Gentlemen uses a blog-style layout with content on the left side, addition information and ads on the right side. With two levels of horizontal navigation at the top of the page, this site is quick and easy to navigate.

Curve Music

After clicking through a splash page, Curve Music presents us with a flash layout that starts playing music on load. This layout is very simplified, offering a couple sections of content and a bold navigation to help viewers find their way around the site.

Kong Tiki

Kong Tiki is a very retro-style site that uses images and big typography to help visitors navigate the site. Kong Tiki showcases their videos right in the center of the page with a video selector at the bottom of the page. I was unaware that these were videos however until I clicked them.

Free Steppa

Flash, big images, and navigation on either side of the page helps to make Free Steppa a unique and creative concept, although it can be hard to determine what is a link and what isn’t.

The Gap

This magazine style blog layout gives The Gap a clean and organized feel. The Gap uses a clean horizontal navigation along the top of the page with two images to represent the featured articles.

Bloc Party

The Bloc Party site is very unique because it has a video set as the background of the content. Using transparency and a grid layout, finding relevant text and navigation is quick and easy.

Luca Guerrieri

After navigating through a splash page, the Luca Guerrieri site shows us a full screen image with navigation along the the bottom. A pop-up audio panel gives visitors access to sample sound clips.

Kenny Chesney

After navigating through another splash page, Kenny Chesney’s site has a large background image that uses additional images for navigation. Overall this is a very cluttered site, making it hard to navigate through to individual pages, but at the same time the images and unique structure give this site a flair of creativity and originality.

Excuse Me Moses

A single column, content heavy site on a dark background, Excuse Me Moses has a clear navigation with a blog-style layout putting content first for visitors.

Workbench Music

Workbench Music uses a centered content column on top of a large background image to help set their content apart from the rest of the page. A very simple navigation with some images and a few lines of text helps create a very minimalist feel that allows for uncluttered navigation.

Rascal Flatts

The site for the band Rascal Flatts uses a flash base to sport a large background image and abstract navigation. Each ’splatter’ of navigation, upon hover, reveals several layers of sub navigation. While visually appealing, this may detract from the accessibility and ease-of-use of the site.

A Butterfly Mind

Another flash site, A Butterfly Mind, after the initial loading time, uses large images, sound clips, and a contrasting navigation to help visitors find what they are looking for. An ad for the CD in the right sidebar helps visitors listen to the music and purchase the album.

AC DC

AC DC has a grungy, desktop-style site. A fly follows the cursor around the page adding a creative twist to the site. I found it difficult to tell which objects on the site were links, but I was able to find the button to mute the sound that automatically plays.

Bluri

Bluri, a news site, has a large dedicated music section with a grungy, yet futuristic feel to it. Categories, large images, and a defined header make it easy to navigate and find information.

Fever

Fever is one of the more original and creative sites in this list simply because the entire site consists of a background image and a massive navigation. Links range from different photos, to upcoming tours, to information about the band, and more.

Last.fm

A cleaner, more ‘2.0′ style site, Last.fm lets you choose your own music that you like, and gives you recommended songs based on your listening preferences.

Slipknot

Slipknot’s website has a large background image with a vertical navigation along the left side of the page. The site is a great fit to the sound of their music, which they have automatically play when the site loads.

Grooveshark

Grooveshark, where you can listen to any song for free, has a beautiful, clean, and organized feel. A prominent search box makes it easy to find a song and the many other options help to find new songs that are by the same artist, or are in the same genre.

eMusic

eMusic, iTunes “cheaper, cooler cousin,” has a very bold, typography oriented site. Bright contrasting colors help to draw readers’ eyes to the main body of the site, which entices them to join their service for 50 free downloads.

Stereo Gum

Another newspaper/magazine style, blog-themed site, Stereo Gum does a great job of putting content and navigation at the top of the page allowing users to find what they are looking for as fast as possible.

Turn Table Lab

This site caught my eye because of its unique and original content organization: a solid navigation followed by two rows of product categories. This helps people find what they are looking for, rather than having to scour through hundreds of entries.

Jason Mraz

Jason’s site follows a hand drawn, grungy website style that gives it a very retro, yet original feel. The site takes a few seconds to load all of the flash, but after it does users are greeted by his voice, which can be turned off with a convenient switch at the bottom of the page.

Flux Blog

Flux Blog uses white space to the max. With a simple blog layout and a healthy amount of white space, the site is easy to skim and read.

Mix Unit

Mix Unit is a product-oriented “hip hop shop.” The site has some flashy graphics, good organization, and great categorization to help users find products that are just right for their needs.

Blink 182

Blink 182’s site uses transparency on top of a grunge background. With a video at the top center of the page, social sites to the left, and blog entries to the right, this band does a great job of putting three critical elements of the site right where it counts.

Acceptance

Acceptance has one of the most professional sites I have seen, using subtle gradients, clean navigation, organized articles, solid typography, and great graphics. This site is both aesthetically appealing and very usable for people new to the internet.

BET

BET features a top navigation with a large media player right below, in the middle of the screen. This immediately draws eyes to the videos that they have chosen, and the numerous other videos listed below. With a bright, colorful background, BET’s website is clean, professional, and visually attractive.

Yahoo Music

Yahoo’s take on music is very clean and organized, relying on images and colors to draw reader’s eyes to where they need to go. With a prominent featured article, and highlighted videos, Yahoo makes finding their best content easy and quick.

Music

Music.com has a great visual organization of thumbnails to help guide readers eyes down the page. With more important, larger, images at the top, followed by rows of smaller, less important, thumbs, it is easy for visitors to discern important content from not-as-important content.

MTV Music

MTV’s site uses bright illustrated backgrounds, combined with creative navigation (searching for artists by letter), to create a fun, entertaining, online haven for music news, videos, and lyrics.

Comcast Music

Comcast uses a very 2.0 look to create an organized, attractive design. Using a large content slider at the top, Comcast is able to feature the most important content on the site using the least amount of screen real estate possible.

BBC Music

BBC’s website is so great because of the customization options it offers to viewers. With the ability to collapse and expand content sections that may or may not be relevant to readers, BBC makes it easy for readers to skip the stuff that is meaningless to them and jump right into the important content.

My Play

Even with an unappealing header gradient, My Play does well when it comes to organizing their content, using a large image slider at the top of the page, with categorized content in the sidebar and lower down on the page.

Katy Perry

Kate Perry’s splash page uses vintage images and faded, retro, colors to help set the tone and mood of her site. With contact information, navigation, and even an ad for the Kate Perry store, this splash page has everything users need to get started exploring the site.

John Legend

With strong typography, a bold navigation, and content organized through the effective use of of white space, John Legend’s site is clean, professional, and speaks to his name in a great way.

Cardinology

The most prominent portion Cardinology is the time machine style pictures in the center of the page. With a nice space background, and a boxed navigation, this site is a creative and original site in the music scene.

Kid Rock

With an abundant use of transparency, a centralized navigation, and a prominent media area, Kid Rocks’ website is very well targeted towards his audience, allowing them to see his pictures, videos, and listen to his music all at the click of a mouse.

I Am Duffy

I Am Duffy uses a strong black website with white text and a lone, stencil-style, image to create a creative website. A prominent audio area on the right side of the page makes it easy for visitors to listen to sound clips quickly and easily.

Pure Volume

Clean, simple, and organized, Pure Volume is one of my favorite additions to this list, as suggested by one of our fabulous readers. With beautiful buttons, beautiful lists, and a straightforward navigation, this site is very easy to find ones way around.

Hype Machine

With vibrant colors and wonderful typographic contrast, Hype Machine is a very aesthetically appealing site. Lots of fine and subtle details make this site unique and helps it to stand out from the crowd of music websites.

Twisten.fm

A great new concept that allows users to connect the music they listen to with the music that people on Twitter are listening to. A smooth, solid colored and simple layout gives Twisten.fm a very solid design.

Cons Of Music Websites

When writing this post, my internet and computer would often freeze after I had opened a few tabs of these different websites. A major factor that contributed to this freezing was the fact that so many sites utilize flash, audio, and splash pages. While these factors may be appropriate to the regular visitors of each site, I found them to be unprofessional and irritating – especially when I couldn’t find a mute button for the music.

Pros Of Music Websites

What is great about music websites is their creativity, diversity, and originality. Each site has its own taste that caters to its viewers making for an interesting and unique online experience. Many websites use creative content organization, bright and vibrant backgrounds, and interesting new methods of navigation.

In Conclusion

After creating this post, I had new design styles in mind that I wanted to try out. Every website had some little bit of it that was unique and creative to help it stand out from the crowd. In conclusion, you should walk away with the following in mind:

1. Creativity – be unique!
2. Remember your audience – Don’t design a music site like you would a business site, it just won’t work.
3. Content organization – There are a lot more ways to organize content (images, text, and video) than just a two or three column layout. Try some new method of organization to make your site stand out.

What are your thoughts on music websites? Which was your most or least favorite? Why?

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