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How to win an Awwward — The elements of beautiful webdesign
Lessons from a decade of lurking awwwards.com
How to Win an Awwward
Have you ever wondered what goes into making an award-winning website? The combination of visual creativity and technical craft that is displayed on Awwwards.com is fascinating to me. As I got more and more into web development myself, my appreciation for the creativity of the featured studios and independent creatives has only grown. It’s my go-to location to find inspiration for web development, and I have watched in awe over the last decade to find out which creations would emerge next.
Let me preface the following article with a disclaimer. I am not an Awwward-winning designer or developer (yet). I have yet to submit a website on the Awwwards-platform. With 2021 now more than three months underway, this article is mostly meant as an anchor for myself; a reminder to reach my goal to win an Awwward this year. I hope you find some value in its contents.
In the following paragraphs I’d like to share some of the elements that constitute an engaging digital experience. Be warned, UX purists might be offended by some of the designs on display. Awwward-winner sometimes sacrifice accessibility in favor of a Brutalist aesthetic, or unconventional navigation to create an innovative website concept.
Furthermore, the loadtimes and the duress these sites put your system under may be significant. I ran a couple of these sites through Google’s Lighthouse analyzer and not all of them score high on the ‘Web Vitals’ benchmarks. But wow do they look good.
So, with that out of the way, join me in dissecting what goes into creating an Awwward-winning website.
The makings of an Awwward-winning website
The mission at Awwwards is ‘Celebrating Excellence in Web Design and Development’. What does excellence in website design entail? When it comes to winning Awwwards, it seems that wildly creative concepts with snazzy animations and strong usage of audiovisual media in a bold design is what gets you recognition as a designer/developer.
