15 Examples of Creative Paper Use in Web Design

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The use of paper and card textures in website design gives a low-fi appearance with a rough cut-and-paste and unpolished style. This hand crafted look works wonders with web design, adding a personal and informal feeling to the design.

Check out this collection of 15 websites that use paper textures in their designs. Want some similar website designs for inspiration? Check out these retro style designs.

Sprocket House

This website has a very cluttered header with lots of realistic graphics and textures, for paper, photos, and more. It has a vintage design and a decorative, dark background.

Sprocket House Paper Use in Web Design Pin

Church on the rock

This is the presentation website of a church. It uses a vintage, sepia color palette and an overall aged-paper design style.

Church on the Rock Paper Use in Web DesignPin

Team Fannypack

This is a really cool website design that perfectly uses realistic aged paper textures to create the look of an online newspaper.

Team Fannypack Paper Use in Web Design Pin

Ernest Hemingway Collection

This website uses a more modern approach, by only overlaying an old, aged paper texture onto the slider image.

 Ernest Hemingway Collection paper web designPin

Narfstuff

This is a fun website design with lots of cool, vector illustrations and paper textures of different types.

Narfstuff paper web designPin

Philosophic Allies

This website uses a sepia-toned paper texture alongside some cool and creative illustrations. It has an overall handmade atmosphere.

-Philosophic Allies paper web designPin

Literary Bohemian

This is a great example of how to use paper textures in web design to create realistic websites. This website combines paper textures with other realistic illustrations for different objects.

The Literary Bohemian paper web designPin

Noel Design

This website design is very fun and unique. It uses paper textures differently and looks more like a kids online color book.

Noel Design paper web designPin

Peace River Excursion

Peace River ExcursionPin

 

Sibling Rivalry Wine

This is another modern example of how to use paper textures successfully in web design. Looks great!

Sibling Rivalry paper web designPin

RevolutionDrivingTuition.co.uk

This website seems a little bit too cluttered but it surely has a design you’ll remember!

Paper Web DesignPin

Film review Friday

This is a simple website design with lots of paper-textured elements, from realistic vector illustrations, such as the movie tickets, to content blocks backgrounds.

Tweet-sized film reviews from Twitter paper web design Pin

Hlvticons

Check out this example of a modern website that uses paper as a background for the content section of the site. It has shadows and textures, so it’s very realistic.

Hlvticons paper web designPin

Fish marketing

This website design uses lots of different textures and realistic objects, such as this open book which serves as a small grid gallery.

Fish Marketing paper web designPin

L’Antidote

L’AntidotePin

24 thoughts on “15 Examples of Creative Paper Use in Web Design”

  1. All those paper designs are really great artwork! But many of them have been showcased over and over. Seems to be a fair sign that grunge is already becoming mainstream. Whereas the colorful, clean, geometrical designs like Veerle Pieters’ Duoh! still seem to be too avantgardistic to be recognized. I am wondering as to when they will hit the design blogs …

    Reply
  2. No doubt there are some brilliant designers at work out there. Thanks for introducing us to some really cool sites!

    As a side note, don’t you think it’s a little funny that as designers we often fall back on “paper media” to help us with our digital designs!

    Reply
  3. @claire – I’m in the same boat. In my mind I have the best intentions for what I want to do, but then the client always steers me away from what I was thinking by wanting something more corporate-tized.

    Thanks Chris, for the cool list, very inspirational. These sites will definitely add to my mind’s eye for the one day when I get a client that says “Go nuts, do whatever you want!” Or maybe I can redesign my own site…

    Reply
  4. Really nice list, i always think i want to go for a ‘srunched paper design’ then i lope off and get a corporate one. One day..

    x

    Reply

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