I think everyone understands the importance of having an interesting and well designed header for their websites, whether that header is simple and minimalist, a glossy and gradient Web 2.0 inspired design, a busy but beautiful collage, or something else entirely. Indeed, in many ways, the header rules supreme.
Unfortunately, in all the glory of the great header design, it’s lowly sister – the footer – frequently gets forgotten. Often containing copyright blurbs, a secondary menu and perhaps a few other bits of meta-information, the neglected footer has often been given just enough attention and style to let it to fit in with the rest of the design.
In recent years, though, the footer has begun something of a rise to prominence. It has started to contain more information, such as blogrolls, Flickr feeds, bookmarks, portfolio images and a wide range of other goodies. In my own experience, I often find myself looking to a site’s footer in order to find useful information about a site and/or its authors or creator.
With this new interest in website footers, it is becoming increasingly important for site designers to pay closer attention to this part of their creations, especially on sites with graphically rich headers. If a header is loud and bold, it’s almost expected that the footer will be loud and bold too. They work together, almost like bookends for the design of a site.
With that in mind, today’s post features 25 websites with beautiful and/or creative footers. Take a look at these, and be inspired by the way in which other designers are doing wonderful things with their footers.
Senya Studios
justBcoz
The Pixel Blog
Yuru Blog
WebDesigner Depot
Web Designer Wall
Think Design
I Primi Dieci
IP Web Design
Mulletized
PV.M Garage
TUT Candy
Mesonprojekt
Mark Forrester
The Electronic Life
Duirwaigh Studios
Brian Yerkes
Komodo Media
Pepper and Koffee
Kulturbanause
Dougles Menezes
Ectomachine
Toucouleur
Story Pixel
Matt Mullenweg
So there you have – 25 wonderful footer designs! Does this mean that, finally, after so many years, the hereto neglected footer has finally risen to equal prominence as the header? Not a chance. The header will, in my view, always rank as more important than the footer, because it’s the first thing to be seen. But, at least we can now see that the footer is no longer little more than an afterthought.
I hope you are inspired by these creative footers! Which ones are your favorites and why? Do you have any special insights about footers that you would like to share – such as how they could be designed or what kind of content you think they could contain? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this!
Matt, thanks for the great collection of footer designs. Very inspirational stuff. No area of the layout is safe from us designers (he-he).
You’re welcome Doug! And you are very right. No area is “safe” and nor should it be! In my view, the best designs are always those in which you can tell that the designer gave careful consideration to every single element!
Hi Matt, thanks for this great inspirational post. footers are coming in front nowdays and getting attention. very nice.. My website has few nice footer. may be you can consider here..
Thanks for the post again, keep more coming!!
Thanks @VIP. Checked out your site. Great footer! I’ll keep it in mind if I do a follow up post (25 More Creative Website Footers?)
Hey Matt.. Thanks for your appreciation. i will be looking forward for your next post about footers.
Thanks
WoW
Great collection Matt. Awesome designs of website footers. Really inspiring. A web designer must match footer with header design and also follow attractiveness. Thanks for sharing this nice post.
Excellent collection.
Some of them were already seen but some are new for me
You got some new for my eyes here
Thanks for the feature Matt. Nice collection. Also props on a really cool design blog.
Thanks Brendon! And props to you for a really cool blog design! I hope people have visited your site to see the entire design!
Hi Matt,
Like you I also like looking at the footers and see what else a blog author offers. Plus, instead of having the sidebars cluttered with less important stuff, a footer is a great place to house it.
That’s what I did on my blog and find it works extremely well.
Thank you for all of your hard work in compiling this fabulous list. (I have a soft spot for themes too, so this was right up my alley).
Very nice selections. Good for inspirations.. But I still think though, that Rob Palmer’s is still the best http://www.branded07.com/
Hey Mark!
Thanks. I checked out Branded07, and it certainly does have an incredibly cool footer! I’ll have to file that away for a potential follow up post! Thanks
clever footer design, i love it, thanks for sharing
Cool compilation of footer design
YAY! Thanks for featuring my site and for rounding up a fab collection
You’re welcome, as always, Sue!
Excellent ^ ^ http://www.dimensiondelcuy.com/ < - also a very nice design
*translated from Spanish*
This is my first visit, and I am absolutely loving your site. So glad I came upon it. And my fav- Ectomachine, that’s one of the coolest web designs ever