What do a dalmatian, chessboard, and vintage photograph have in common? A high contrast black and white color palette that, for all its simplicity, is visually striking.
Because of its bold contrast, black and white is a timeless combination that is widely used by digital creatives. Not only is it beloved because it’s classic, but also because it leaves plenty of room for experimentation—whether in the form of three-dimensional graphics, interactive visuals, or unconventional typography. Black and white designs make room for elements other than color to stand out, with form, texture, and motion taking center stage.
Here, we look at some of the best black and white website designs online right now—showcasing how sometimes, design constraints can actually unlock creativity.
29 black and white websites to inspire you
1. Shir Daniel
2. Levon Aronian
3. Shay Aloni
4. NexBank
5. Angela Milosevic
6. Dana Barkay
7. Sofia Papadopoulou
8. Bruno Tomé
9. Lucie Bolé
10. Hello From Here
11. LE-QB
12. Alona Zukerman
13. Bon Iver with Spotify
14. Black Dog
15. VIITA TITAN
16. Tal Rozenberger
17. NFTYPE
18. Brother Film Co
19. Alon Peres
20. The Virtual Economy by L’Atelier
21. Raxo
22. Hen Golan
23. Bigfoot
24. Refresh Studio
25. Ronny Levi
26. Opal
27. First on SoundCloud
28. Order
29. Dillinger
1. Shir Daniel
Shir Daniel is a graphic designer who focuses on typography, illustration, and branding. The black and white animated print on her website’s first fold puts the visual emphasis on motion and texture rather than color. Further down the site are striking images of her work, which uses lines, shapes, and vibrant colors that pop against the monochromatic background. Daniel uses the repeater feature to showcase her work in a neat (and responsive) grid.
Levon Aronian is a professional chess player holding the title of Grandmaster. True to his sport, his website is structured by a black and white grid. Font animations add visual interest, and a realistic three-dimensional chess piece, with a grayscale design that appears metallic, guides visitors as they scroll through Aronian’s ratings and awards.
3. Shay Aloni
Shay Aloni is a designer with a focus on UX/UI design and visual identity. His website makes use of clean white lines and a black and white logo, as well as a solid black background. This highlights his brightly colored portfolio, which stands out against the black backdrop with its vivid hues of purple, yellow, pink, and green.
4. NexBank
NexBank Capital is a financial services company that offers institutional, commercial, and mortgage banking services. Their black and white design uses trendy elements such as motion, visual texture, and three-dimensional shapes to present their brand as a sophisticated, cutting-edge solution. Most striking is the twisting, wave-like geometrical shape that undulates in the background as the visitor scrolls.
Angela Milosevic is a digital designer and art director. Her black and white website design lets her experiment with bold imagery and oversized fonts. The first fold, for instance, presents the visitor with a black and white stipple image that resembles printed ink. Occasionally, a larger-than-life eye drifts back and forth across the page, a testament to the experimental possibilities of black and white design.
6. Dana Barkay
Dana Barkay is a visual designer specializing in font design and lettering, branding, and print media. Her black and white website mimics the high contrast of ink on paper, making it an appropriate color scheme for showcasing her custom fonts. The lack of color draws the focus to the form of the letters themselves, putting the spotlight on her typography skills and the design of the site’s layout, made with the grid tool.
Sofia Papadopoulou is a visual designer and art director and a self-described digital native. Her black and white design makes her website more than just a site; it is, in her own words, an “experience.” Indeed, the monochromatic color scheme, combined with the star-shaped cursor, interactive cosmic graphics, and celestial music, plunge the reader into a virtual outer space.
8. Bruno Tomé
Bruno Tomé’s black and white design is perfect for showcasing his area of expertise: fonts. By forgoing color altogether, he’s able to use creative whitespace, flashy fonts, and interactive design. As the visitor moves their cursor, the design changes between white-on-black and black-on-white. Despite the lack of color, this inversion of black and white is playful and almost psychedelic.
9. Lucie Bolé
Lucie Bolé is an interaction designer at Frog Design. Her homepage, black and white on the first fold, offers a pleasing contrast from the brightly colored asymmetrical shapes further down the page. While a colorful background would make these graphics busy or overwhelming, the black and white design of her website helps Bolé strike a balance between minimalism and whimsy.
10. Hello from Here
Hello from Here is a poster project and gallery from the creative company Upperquad. The site, designed as a black and white drawing grid, generates a custom poster based on a city of the visitor’s choice. The poster, like the website, is also in black and white, giving visitors a feeling of complete immersion in the artwork.
11. Alona Zukerman
Alona Zukerman is a visual storyteller who creates everything from typography and web design to branding and illustration. Her black and white website keeps visual elements to a minimum, compelling visitors to read the text without the distraction of images or color. Instead, Zukerman adds a sense of dyancism to the site by introducing interactive elements like a hover effect. This showcases her skillset in a clean, organized way and makes her website easy to read and navigate. (Related: How to use our custom CSS to take your client sites from good to great)
12. LE-QB
LE-QB is an architecture and design studio. Their website, which features a white background overlaid by thin black text and black graphics, is creatively minimalistic. Like some of the other sites featured in this round-up, it uses the black and white aesthetic to experiment with texture and motion. Running across the middle of the home page is a diagonal line that vibrates like a taut string at the swipe of the cursor. The rotating cube on the left-hand side appears shiny and three-dimensional, thanks to the artist’s clever use of grayscale.
This website is a visualization of how many people are streaming the album i, i by Bon Iver on Spotify. The site isn’t just informative; it makes use of interactive graphinics to become a work of art in itself. With ever-changing shapes made of millions of lowercase letter i’s, the website uses a strictly black and white palette to experiment with whitespace and pixel density. The result is a hypnotic experience that moves with the fluidity of music.
14. Black Dog
Black Dog is a digital story designed by Suji Choi and developed by Chanwoo Hwang. Visitors to the site are invited to click on the story as if flipping through the pages of a book. The story’s black and white graphics bend, twist, and scatter at the cursor’s touch, and various patterns and shapes symbolize the story’s eerie content. At one line— “I was swallowed up”—the entire page turns black, dragging readers into the story’s plot.
15. VIITA TITAN
Titan is a brand of titanium watches by the company Viita. While Viita’s main company site features colored photography, they’ve built a separate website for Titan to give their premium watches a distinct look and feel. The black and white design represents luxury, class, and sophistication. This, combined with the oversized, all-caps white text, makes the brand appear grand and monumental.
16. Tal Rozenberger
Tal Rozenberger is a graphic design student and UX/UI designer. Her website design uses a white background and elegant black typeface to evoke sophistication and professionalism. The upwards sticky scroll—where each new project in her portfolio overlaps the other—resembles the act of flipping through a crisp stack of paper, adding visual depth to the site.
17. NFTYPE
NFTYPE is an artwork by NFTXYZ, a collective for conceptual digital art. “Explosions of color, flashy collisions of pixels, [and] sensory overload” is exactly what NFTXYZ seeks to avoid. They prefer to “pare things down and embrace original concepts” with “a strong statement of plainness.” Their black and white website is proof that they’re living up to this mission as artists.
18. Alon Peres
Alon Peres is a design student and photographer. His website is delightfully playful, even in the absence of color. Instead, Alon puts the focus on solid black geometrical shapes. The shapes twist, spin, and reshape themselves at the touch of a cursor, giving the visitor an interactive experience that transcends the visual.
19. Brother Film
Brother Film is a video production company that also creates their own production music. The first fold of their black and white design appears entirely in grayscale, bringing to mind vintage black and white films. Scroll down, and images of their work emerge in bursts of color, standing out against the dark background and beckoning the viewer to click.
The Virtual Economy isn’t the usual website; it’s an art piece, philosophical work, and research paper combined into one. The site uses black and white design to turn an essay into an artwork, making it not only visually engaging but also guiding the reader’s understanding of the content. As visitors scroll through the site, ever-changing star-shaped graphics give viewers the sense that the content is futuristic and cutting-edge.
21. Raxo
Raxo is a design agency specializing in branding and animation. The first fold of their site is split in two; the left-hand side has a white background and black text, while the right-hand side has a black background and white text. While the color palette is simple, the use of color blocking makes the brand feel modern, trendy, and fashionable.
22. Hen Golan
Hen Golan is a UX/UI designer with experience in mobile app design, game design, and branding. She divides her homepage of her website into sharp, fine lines, creating a black and white modular grid that looks elegant yet modern. In the center-right of her homepage, a low opacity black overlay offers a sneak peak of her portfolio that tempts visitors to click.
23. Bigfoot
Bigfoot is an artist and music management company. Their website uses a black and white color palette, with the grayscale portraits of its various members on the homepage. Thanks to the unassuming white background, the designers are able to play around with the whitespace around each photograph. The result is asymmetrical framing that is visually interesting and memorable.
24. Refresh
Refresh is a design studio that specializes in creating immersive websites. Their own site, designed in grayscale, makes it clear that they practice what they preach. On their homepage, they show the types of images that can be created with simple white, black, and gray. Upon opening their site, the visitor is treated to three-dimensional, interactive images—either an endless series of spatial hills against a starry sky, or a bright white skull that shatters when clicked.
25. Ronny Levi
Ronny Levi is a visual communication student specializing in typography and print design. At the center of her website’s homepage is a neatly organized black and white list of her various projects, directing visitors straight to her portfolio. A smattering of lime green adds visual depth and serves to highlight important elements, such as project titles and contact information, against the black background.
26. Opal Camera
Opal is a DSLR webcam designed for professionals. Their black and white website reflects their tongue in cheek message: “Available in any color, as long as it’s black or white.” By creating a monochromatic brand identity from their website to their product, they reinforce the idea that their webcam isn’t a brightly colored toy; it’s a sophisticated tool.
First on SoundCloud is a program with a mission to amplify breakthrough artists on the popular music sharing website. Their website has a street style aesthetic, with a black and white design accented with pops of bright color. The musicians’ vividly patterned clothing and neon backdrops stand out against the black background, shining a spotlight on these up-and-coming artists in the music scene.
28. Order
Order is a design firm specializing in brand identity. Their minimalistic website—which makes use of a solid black background and a white typewriter-style font—lets their images do the talking. By restricting the use of color and text to their works, they keep the visitor’s focus on their portfolio.
29. Dillinger
Dillinger is a company that creates branded short films. Their black and white website design gives them plenty of room to play around with interactive design and oversized type. For instance, the names of the directors, highlighted in heavy bold font, bulge outwards as the visitor scrolls past.
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