See It From Birds Eye View. Web Designs with Horizontal Projection

People like things that look familiar to them. Facing with whatever we’ve already seen, heard or tasted, we feel self-confident, ‘cause we have an experience of dealing with it. That’s why we enjoy designs that repeat objects from real life, like in skeuomorphic layouts. Their popularity fell off previous year, and in 2014 we observed the new trend – plan view design. Frankly speaking, it’s not one of the major trends you might have read about, but I dare define it as a tendency peculiar to a number of modern websites.

2014 was marked with a bunch of trends you all know. Let’s have a quick view at them and give some short definitions:

• Storytelling design – the one that tells about company or a person in a captivating way with cool effects and nice images. Seamless scrolling, parallax effects enliven such designs.
• Responsive design - a must-have point that meets requirements of these days when web so often goes mobile.
• Focus on content - the main role of design is to highlight the content, making it readable and easy to perceive.
• Simple & clear - a well-done modern design speaks to the point, doesn’t peddle and annoy with cluttered look. And this striving for simplicity is a fertile ground for immense popularity of flat designs.
• Typography as a belle of the ball - overall simplicity of websites is spiced up with visually appealing typography that brings emphasis on content parts.
• Fixed navigation - those who know a thing in UI/UX prefer fixed navigation (header, menu) to the standard one, ‘cause it facilitates the users’ work with the site.

These are the major trends, but the list can be added with the following: crossbrowser compatibility, Flash intros, loading screens, long shadow elements, hipster logos, etc. Though, it will not be complete without mentioning plan view web design.

It's Also Called...

Horizontal projection is widely used in designs, giving them the look of a desktop. Entering a site with such background image you will see a usual everyday picture – a workspace with the so familiar things scattered all around. All those items like phones, tablets, watches, coffee mugs, post-it notes, pencils create the cozy atmosphere of your own desk, and sets up the right mood. The psychologists say that people feel relaxed and comfortable when dealing with everything established and habitual, 'cause of their previous experience. The same feelings are aroused by plan view web designs, showing existing order of items we work with every day. Thus, viewers like visiting sites with such elements over and over again.

And are Used In...

What are the areas these designs are widely used in? The first to mention is business. All types of business websites including personal pages, web presences of companies make use of large background images with horizontal perspective. The second best is a variety of sites that deal with food industry. I’m sure that you’ve seen hundreds of yummy layouts of restaurants, kitchen blogs, sites with recipes, etc. They are truly amazing! Inviting people in with all that cool kitchen stuff and delicious foods, they gain the audience’ interest without a hitch. You can also find fashion, music layouts of this kind.

Header background image is the most popular place for picturing images with plan view. The top of the site makes the first impression, and it's not surprising that plenty of trendy elements are implemented there. Some sites delight the eye with horizontal projection in their central content part, so you can see it while scrolling. Rarely, it is placed in the footer part.

So, the examples of plan view web designs are ready, want to see them now?

Examples to Consider

The Heads of State

“The business of image making” this is how these guys call their work. Cutting edge site design with a cool horizontal projection in its upper part works for good promotion of their business.

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Munchery

Looking at this layout, you’ll certainly feel your mouth water because of all those yummy dishes on the table, beverages and mellow figs on the plate.

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Langtidsmodnet

If you're vigorous meat eater, this website will make you feel really hungry, before opening it, go grab a sandwich.

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SocioDesign

What a digital design company can offer? Bunch of cool brand identity kits and a tonn of successful projects.

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Squarespace

I like the modern layout in so calm light-brown colors. Featuring the table of a tailor, it offers you to have a look at all the instruments he/she makes use of everyday.

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Whatsmynvme

Looking at all those items on the site of artdirector, we can see what are his most favorite things, and what he does in his spare time.

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Designabile

"We craft interfaces beautifully" - this motto integrates perfectly with the items featured on the home page. Apple gadgets, Beats headphoned, a clean notepad - each of these items is beatiful in its own way.

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Equus

Branding company would be a witout a showcase of a clean brand identity kit - this is what you can find on the home page.

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Gnosh

This site design reminds those restaurants with a homemade cuisine. The whole layout is a dark brown table with some vegetables, and other delicacies lying all around. If you're fond of cooking don't forget to bookmark this site.

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Grovemade

This is a website of handcrafters who are making iPhone cases and some other stuff from real wood. Nothing will speak better than beautiful photos of their products.

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Kitbag

This site strikes with its simplicity and clean looks, so as its plan view image that shows uncluttered space with several items placed on it.

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Mijlo

Inside any woman's bag there's a real mess, looks like Mijlo is the only woman in the world who managed to arrange the chitterlings of her bag. What came out of it you can see on the screenshot.

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Mod Notebooks

Take a pick at the table with a number of notepads. BTW, this service is one of a kind. They digitize notepads, even though some handwritings may seem unreadable, how they do it remains a mistery. Nevertheless, the site deserves to be included into this post due to unusual home page.

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Storehouse

iPad image with embedded videos is the key point that you can notice several time while scrolling down this design. In the initial point it is placed on the wooden table with usual items around it.

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The First Time

If you're fond of some antique things and flea markets make you drool like a puppy, welcome to "The First Time" website. There you will see Polaroid camera, vinyl player and other cool things that some day were so close for everyone of us.

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The Oven

Multicolored background with various kitchen utensils against it pleases the eye and looks quite optimistic.

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Plan view web designs or designs with horizontal projection are so frequently to be found all over the web, that they can be called one of 2014 trends. As you can see from the examples above, websites of various business spheres make use of such layouts that bring them ever-increasing viewers' interest and new visitors.

P.S. If you want to create an appealing design as one from the mentioned above, try to use website-builder.com.