Here are some of the best luxury websites you can preview for your web design inspiration! Click through or scroll down to read more.
When it comes to luxury website design, the bland and boring just don’t cut it in the 21st century. If your business operates in the luxury industry, maintaining a top-notch website design is paramount to your brand’s success. At Connective Web Design, we know the value of a seamless custom website design, compelling graphics, and a user-friendly format. You must knit together every design component to harness that “je ne sais quoi” attraction that converts visitors into brand-loyal customers.
We invite you to come along as we explore 12 of the best luxury websites, discussing highlights, observations, and key features. Then, keep reading to learn about the most important design elements luxury brands need to create a successful website.
The best luxury website designs
1) Vera Wang
Website: https://www.verawang.com
Highlights: Extreme contrast | Minimalist | Custom photography
Observations:
The Vera Wang website is a stunning combination of simplistic design and compelling imagery. The site greets you with an interactive video; then, a tasteful arrow scrolls downward to reveal striking, high-contrast custom photography of the fashion maven’s iconic designs.
The text and graphics appear as you scroll, creating a flowing effect. The design features a clever twist on the predictability of most websites, using two horizontal menu lines instead of three. The typography lacks a frilly or eye-catching font but doesn’t need it. The fashion imagery speaks for itself, and a minimalistic design demonstrates the brand’s inherent luxury and class.
2) Van Cleef & Arpels
Website: https://www.vancleefarpels.com/us/en/home.html
Highlights: High impact | Typography | Imagery
Observations:
The Van Cleef & Arpels website is no exception to the level of excellence customers expect from this luxury jewelry brand. The use of the identical tall serif font you’ll see in any Van Cleef & Arpels print ad creates a sense of cohesiveness and trust. Plus, the site is simple and easily navigable on a cell phone without sacrificing impact on a smaller screen.
The website creates even more interest by letting visitors enter the Van Cleef & Arpels workshop, a unique feature. With its luxurious design and high-resolution images of gorgeous jewelry, it’s impossible not to appreciate the class and simplicity the company holds dear.
3) Henge
Website: https://www.henge07.com/
Highlights: Animation | Typography | Interactive
Observations:
Step into the world of luxury furniture with Henge’s bold website. The first visual is a rapidly shifting slideshow featuring the brand’s best pieces. It’s just fast enough to let the viewer catch the power of each piece without being distracting. The typography is a simple sans serif that evokes an ultra-modern feel.
Another fantastic feature is the giant menu on the left side. Hover over each piece of text, and you’ll see an icon of that furniture category floating back and forth as you move your mouse. This ingenious touch sets the website apart as one of the best.
4) Highcourt Leisure Club
Website: https://highcourt.co/
Highlights: Bold graphics | Compelling content | Color choice
Observations:
The Highcourt Leisure Club redefines the “luxury product” and the idea of exclusivity. With a bold serif font and straight lines that draw the eye to the text and graphics, this website commands your attention and knows how to keep it, too.
We also love the powerful use of simple line drawings in place of photography, although it does feature small photos further down. Those lines create an eye-catching graphic and attract interest. Finally, the ombré colors that change gradients as you scroll are a brilliant and tasteful touch. It’s a unique-looking site, and we recommend checking it out.
5) Discovery Land Company
Website: https://discoverylandco.com/
Highlights: Clear message | Custom videography | Striking images
Observations:
Plunge into a paradise world right from your computer with Discovery Land Company. The luxury travel brand has a spectacular website with incredible custom videography, including sweeping aerial views from top-rated destinations featuring high-def resolution and compelling colors. Even after you scroll past the aerial images, you see amazing photographs of turquoise water and a moving menu of the most popular destinations.
The website also sends a clear message to consumers, with small paragraphs describing the elite community you can join by traveling with Discovery. “Find your unique world” is the message, and it fits perfectly.
6) Charlotte Tilbury
Website: https://www.charlottetilbury.com/us
Highlights: Custom photography | Clear CTAs | Quick-add products
Observations:
Is there anything more luxurious than high-end skincare and beauty? Every luxury product on the Charlotte Tilbury website has optimal features: legible font, customer reviews, and a clear call to action. The site’s first image is a stunning model featuring glowing skin and an accompanying link to an article about five-minute skincare routines, which provide value to the reader.
Another clever addition to this luxury website design is the quick-add buttons, which allow visitors to add a product to their cart without even clicking to another page. It’s easy, convenient, and makes the website user-friendly, which is a considerable benefit to SEO (search engine optimization).
7) Timorous Beasties
Website: https://www.timorousbeasties.com/
Highlights: Bold graphics | Interactive | Clear buttons
Observations:
The Timorous Beasties landing page features the perfect luxury website design for a brand selling high-end homeware, décor, bedding, and furniture. In addition to a large-scale image of the brand’s iconic and intricately detailed color prints, a large “Shop Now” button draws the eye and invites shoppers to browse.
The website’s footer containing the brand name, locations, and phone numbers remains in view as you scroll, prominently displaying the most important information. Then, scroll down even further and hover over text blocks displaying collaborations and collections, which appear as a matching image next to the text. It’s relatively simple but still features powerful on-brand imagery.
8) Yates on Yates
Website: https://yatesonyates.com/
Highlights: Typography | Custom photography | Cleverly placed content
Observations:
If you’re into luxury living, then the Yates on Yates website might just convince you to pack up and move to Victoria. The brand capitalizes on Victoria’s high livability with spectacular custom photography of the luxury apartments. Two other outstanding features are the modern design format and fabulous color palette for the sunset in the background.
An unassuming serif font marks the typography for Yates on Yates, accompanied by slightly tinted photography with high visual impact. Visitors will also enjoy cleverly placed content menus with dropdowns that create more space and make the page user-friendly.
9) Yachting Partners International
Website: https://www.ypiyachts.com/en
Highlights: Imagery | Clear CTAs | Unique menu
Observations:
The YPI website welcomes visitors with a full-screen aerial image of luxury yachts creating a graceful, curving wake over a dark blue ocean. The effect is remarkable and instantly transports the viewer into a world of class, luxury, and the million-dollar yacht lifestyle.
A bold serif font declares a simple yet effective brand message, and the landing page features clear CTA buttons to draw the eye and inspire browsing. Another standout design element is the menu, which fills the screen. Hover over the menu items, and different images appear based on the category, creating a powerful visual effect.
10) NU:RO
Website: http://nuro.co/
Highlights: Extreme contrast | Bold typography | Minimalist design
Observations:
The NU:RO website creates a symphony of stunning black-and-white images and extreme contrast that works perfectly for this luxury watch brand. The developers’ minimalist approach to the entire site is something to behold. The typography features a no-nonsense sans serif font, with tall letters and large sizes. Scroll down to see a paragraph describing the brand that takes up the entire page to create a hard-hitting visual impact.
In addition, the website has clear CTA buttons, with snapshots of the most popular watches and large buttons underneath, allowing visitors to check stock or “Buy Now.” The written voice in the content is also overly simplistic (yet not demeaning), and it fits in with the site’s industrial design features and bold graphics.
11) Phantom Hire
Website: https://www.phantomhire.com/
Highlights: Videography | Formatting | Responsive
Observations:
When you first view the Phantom Hire website, there’s no denying the sheer luxury and class that shines through every design element. The first scene is a sweeping video of all the different vehicles for hire (Phantom Hire is a luxury car rental service for weddings, proms, etc.). The movement stays in the background while you scroll, creating a unique and dynamic feel to the page formatting.
Another significant aspect of this website is its small graphic icons featuring graceful designs and elegant lettering. The bottom contact form is also large and easy to read, an important feature that many developers neglect. Plus, the page design is ultra-responsive, no matter what device you’re browsing on or your screen size.
12) The Mill Apartments at Greenwich
Website: https://www.themillgreenwich.com/
Highlights: Excellent content | Custom photography | Formatting
Observations:
The Mill Apartments in Greenwich, CT, define modern luxury living. The website weaves all the best design elements of an extraordinary website into one, combining incredible videography and photography featuring impressive views of the building’s exterior and interior.
The content of this website is also a standout feature. With valuable information about the building, its history, life in Greenwich, and what makes The Mill special, it’s the perfect example of quality copywriting. The page formatting is just as excellent, with square, borderless images that slide up and down independently when you scroll. Overall, the website is tasteful, with high impact and clear menu choices that make it easy to navigate, even on smaller screens.
13) Gucci
Website: https://www.gucci.com/
Highlights: Videography | Photography | Modern
Observations:
When you first view the Gucci website, there’s no denying the sheer luxury and class that shines through every design element. The first full page video of glamorous models and Gucci products. The movement stays in the background while you scroll, creating a unique and dynamic feel to the page formatting.
Another significant aspect of this website is its oversized and colorful graphics that headline each section of the homepage. Plus, the page design is ultra-responsive, no matter what device you’re browsing on or your screen size.
14) Cartier
Website: https://www.cartier.com/
Highlights: Annimation | Clean colors | Luxurious
Observations:
There’s no denying the sheer luxury and class that shines through every design element of the Cartier website. Step into the world of luxury jewelry with Cartier’s bold website. The first visual is a rapidly shifting video featuring the brand’s featured pieces.
A shining and luxurious triple banded ring of white, yellow and rose gold. It’s just fast enough to let the viewer catch the power of each piece, weather worn buy a model or spinng in a brilliant animation. Another fantastic feature is the subtle annimations that bring a focus to each new element and product. This ingenious touch sets the website apart as one of the best.
15) Rolex
Website: https://www.rolex.com/
Highlights: Videography | Design | Responsive
Observations:
When you first view the Rolex website, there’s no denying the sheer luxury and class that shines through every design element. The first scene is a giant, full-page, video with dazling close-ups of it’s current watches. Studded with facets of brilliant silver, gold and diamonds these luxery watches jump off the screen on any device.
Another significant aspect of this website is its large video backgrounds featuring graceful designs and elegant lettering. The page design is ultra-responsive, no matter what device you’re browsing on or your screen size the expensive wares at Rolax are front and center.
What makes a great luxury website design?
Now that we’ve explored 12 of the best luxury websites on the web, it’s time to dive deeper into the specific design elements that create a compelling luxury website. We’ll discuss all the components of exceptional website design and how to combine design elements with SEO to create an online masterpiece.
Color choice
One common design mistake is selecting color based solely on aesthetics or what’s pleasing to your eye. Choosing an effective color scheme for a website requires careful planning, so don’t be cavalier with this decision.
One of our favorite color effects is extreme contrast, which doesn’t have to be black and white. However, the two colors must have different tones. To check the contrast level, convert your colors to grayscale. If they’re virtually indistinguishable, choose another color combo. High contrast colors also add to overall legibility, another contributing factor to easier readability. If your visitors can’t read the text on your page, they’re unlikely to keep browsing.
In addition, choose colors that spark familiarity. For example, if your business is luxury fishing charters, try a monochromatic range of rich blues or add in a palette reminiscent of a sunset rather than, say, purple and green.
Typography
Typography is a critical design element for website creation. Luxury brands must project taste and elegance, so avoid funny or childish fonts, like Comic Sans MS or Jokerman. Don’t forget to factor in overall readability, which often means sticking to the same font family. Using an intricate, flowery script or cursive is unadvisable, particularly for users on mobile devices. In addition, avoid using all caps for anything other than short phrases. It’s obnoxious, and visually, it reads as “shouting.”
Besides aesthetics, consider text placement, spacing, and character length. The ideal character length for a single line of text is between 30 and 60 characters, including the white space. That brings us to spacing, or “leading” in typography terms. A general rule of thumb is that the leader should be about one-third higher than the character’s height.
Here are the main takeaways:
- Avoid using all caps
- Use the same font family
- Choose “standard” fonts
- Consider spacing and formatting
- Keep line length between 30 and 60 characters
- Choose fonts that work well on large or small screens
Imagery
Images and visuals will draw a visitor’s eye first over text. In a world where the human attention span is ever-shrinking, the images on your website can make a significant difference in bounce rate, length of stay, and conversions.
Our first piece of advice is to optimize images for load speed. Nobody likes looking at a blank white space where an image should be or waiting for it to load. Naturally, users confronted with this dilemma will assume your website is malfunctioning and likely abandon the page. To learn more, check out these tips from WordPress about how to optimize images for faster loading.
If you can afford it, splurge on custom photography. Avoid using stock images, which often look generic and bland. Plus, stock photos don’t say anything about your brand or what it stands for. If you must use stock images, tag them with specific long-tail keywords relating to your product or service.
Content and copywriting
In the world of websites, content is king. Having excellent website copy that’s informative, relevant, and high in quality is paramount. Of course, avoid grammatical or spelling errors. It’s an immediate turnoff that will send page visitors scrambling for that big red X.
In addition, never use black-hat SEO techniques regarding your content. Don’t steal, scrape, or copy content. It’s unethical and will lower your ranking on the search engine results pages. Content needs to be original, tailored to your brand, contain important information, and provide value to the reader.
Website features
What do all of the luxury sites on our list have in common? Brilliant website features. The best include intuitive menus, interactive features, clear and actionable CTA buttons, and graphic icons. Here are eight critical features your website should have:
- Intuitive yet predictable design elements
- Relevant, engaging content
- Visuals, images, or videos
- Legible text and font choice
- Simple navigation and menus
- Excellent user experience
- A company blog with regular updates
- Links to your social media pages
Great SEO
Far too many developers design and launch their websites before adding in SEO strategies. Website design and SEO go hand in hand, and a brilliant website weaves SEO directly into its architecture, coding, and infrastructure.
Excellent SEO improves your search engine ranking, user experience, and conversions. As you know, conversions lead to profits. Here are some actionable tips you can use to optimize your website design to include excellent SEO:
- Research and use target keywords
- Use a responsive, mobile-friendly design
- Optimize title tags and meta descriptions
- Reduce code bottleneck and plugin bloat for faster speed
- Utilize internal and external linking
- Emphasize readability and easy navigation
- Use simple, user-friendly menus
- Optimize visual elements for rapid page loads
- Use a consistent format and theme throughout your site
- Avoid pages that are more than four clicks from the homepage
Final thoughts
Do you feel inspired yet? Our list of the 12 best luxury website design ideas should give you all the life you need to let your creative juices flow free. However, creating a successful luxury website design involves much more than just aesthetics.
At Connective Web Design, one of our many passions is building extraordinary websites with brilliant designs and a high visual impact. Our team creates custom designs for our clients using a combination of digital marketing, SEO techniques, and good old-fashioned attention to detail. Feel free to check out our portfolio or blog to learn more about our services and website design. Then, contact us to schedule a consultation with our team of experts.
