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Website FAIL - 30 Web Designs That Will Hurt Your Eyes

By: Matt in Design   ||   June 9, 2009

Decent web design doesn’t cost too much these days. With the advent of Wordpress and a plethora of free web templates it’s not that difficult to knock together a site that most web designers would be happy to call their own. For some reason there are those that strive to be different, difficult, or deluded.

Here are 30 of the worst sites bandwidth can buy.

Warning, be prepared to regret clicking this link! Seriously, epileptics beware! I’m not quite sure what was going though their minds when they thought this was a good idea.
http://www.paperrad.org/

11

I’m actually a fan of MIA, but this site seems to have been designed by the same guy as the site above, though possibly while drunk, asleep, or both.
http://www.miauk.com/

21

Evangel Cathedral is a church site that is in dire need of ADD medication - this site is buzzing, literally.
http://www.evangelcathedral.net/welcome.htm

31

You may need to take motion sickness medication to view the next site. I kept asking myself “Is THIS what Jesus would do?”
http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/

41

This site is actually amazing, there are no other words for it. Why procrastinate over going for a two or three column layout when you can go for five. It’s okay though we’ll make things simply by having 9 forms of navigation.
http://www.havenworks.com/

51

Sometimes I wonder if people are even looking at what they publish online?
http://home.texoma.net/~jimg/welcome.html

5

Bad site, but great product! Inflatable churches, shame it’s a whole six months to my next birthday.
http://www.inflatablechurch.com/

62

You’re looking forward to your big day as a bride. Who do you choose to take care of the outfits for your big day? The site that looks like it was designed by borderline crazy person of course. Missing plugins? I must be missing the one that makes this site readable.
http://yvettesbridalformal.com/

bride

Bright colours hurt the eyes, and godawful design that scares small children. I had to highlight the text just to read it. Under construction apparently, maybe the best option would be to knock it down and start again. If I were a part of Princeton Consultants, I think I’d consider litigation.
http://home.comcast.net/~dmaneyapanda/zugorific/personal2.html

8

Broken links, and I’m not even sure what that is in the background. This site does partially redeem itself however by allowing the viewer to chose music, or not. Not I think.
http://ronoslund.com/

9

Lets see how many tables we can fit on a page. Oh look, that many.
http://www.huntgraphic.com/moto.htm

10

Perhaps not as offensive as the previous sites, this site definitely has been beaten with the ugly stick. I can’t believe they have the nerve to offer free backgrounds. That’s like Gordon Brown offering free PR advice.
http://members.tripod.com/fuzzymartian/

111

A big fat obnoxious site, with a monotonic robot voice. This page must have been designed by a former, disgruntled employee. Scrolling, flashing text and graphics actually made me have to take a break from researching this post.
http://www.esupersoft.com/lips/

12

If the appearance of this site means all officers are on the street protecting the citizens of West Virginia, rather than taking web design lessons, then it has my blessing.
http://www.martinsburgpd.org/

13

Never let so called ‘web conversion experts’ tell you that you shouldn’t put all of your products on one page. Why bother with layout, or indeed logic.
http://www.arngren.net/

gadgets

Possibly not the worst site on the list, but hell, these guys are supposed to repair computers, not infect them with awful designs.
http://home.comcast.net/~computerphysicians/

physicians

This eyesore of a site at least has a nice dog picture- dogs win, web design loses.
http://frnz.de/

16

Jackson of Piccadilly does not fit in the ugly, flashy, boring or eye-popping categories. In fact, it is rather pretty. It has a lovely face, but no substance. Navigating this site made me want to reach for a coffee. I don’t even like coffee.
http://www.jacksonsofpiccadilly.co.uk/main.htm

17

As well as the wacky misspelling of the word “wizard” in the site’s name, this is a pretty gruesome site! Not the sort of design that would convince me that they’re the best people to stick a needle in my arm.
http://www.wizzardstattoo.com/

18

This guy actually does web design. In that case I’m a brain surgeon.
http://www.webking.com/computer-services/index.html

webking

Does anyone have any idea what this site is even about? I really am at a loss.
http://bremen.weltregierung.org/abstraktindex.html

20

Someone thought that using a colour scheme based on a wounded zebra would be attractive.
http://www.izzza.com/

211

Maybe not typical of German efficiency and ingenuity, unless you count efficient as putting as many elements on the page as possible. Actually, maybe those crazy Germans have stumbled on something…….
http://www.ingenfeld.de/

22

A site of very few words. I guess they’re letting the pictures speak for themselves. I’m not sure why, but I feel a bit uncomfortable looking at this site. Maybe it’s becacuse I feel like I’m about to get run-over by those trucks.
http://www.mccormickrecovery.co.uk/

mccormick

Yes, more frames, tables, bright colours, marquees, and flashing graphics - you’re spoiling us!
http://www.fabricland.co.uk/

fl

This is actually Aaron Wall’s first site. I guess we all started off like this, myself included, mine just isn’t online anymore :)
http://www.newnavy.us/

navy

The sparse wasteland of this site is perhaps only rivalled by the grusome design of their building, which they seem to be very proud of for some reason.
http://cbm-eureka.com/

cbm

Does this chiropractic site instill trust? I think a good rule to live by is if someone can’t sort out text justification then you probably shouldn’t let them play with your spine.
http://www.proactivechiropractic.org/

26

With thanks to…..

Good Web Practices
Blogstorm



37 Comments

  • Comment by: Team Nirvana

    So true to your words. The sites are truly a pathetic experience to watch.

    But, when observed the theme of the websites are quite reflecting on the designs which makes them more adept to the end users who wish to have a look at it.

    Nice composition.

    June 9, 2009 @ 5:13 pm  
  • Comment by: antje wilsch

    hahahaa…. oh my gosh thanks for the LOLz… had to SU and digg this… too funny

    sometimes i wonder if there is a template for bad design out there!

    June 9, 2009 @ 5:54 pm  
  • Comment by: Adam G.

    Pretty bad. I always thought this Brazilian site in U.S. was bad: http://www.verdeamarelo.net/default1.asp , but now that I’ve seen your list, they look fantastic by comparison.

    My main gripe with most Brazilian sites is that they are VERY top-heavy with advertizing. Also, they often lack any kind of feed. The one I mentioned above offers links to news, but if you check the html you’ll see it’s just brought in from Google News. That’s at least something, I guess.

    June 9, 2009 @ 7:04 pm  
  • Comment by: Jake

    These are horrible, definitely something I try NOT to strive for when working with website clients! Awesome collection, keep it up!

    June 9, 2009 @ 9:09 pm  
  • Comment by: Wyrd

    I love looking at horribly designed websites and cringing. I don’t know why. I also like MST3K. Connection? Yeah.


    Furry cows moo and decompress.

    June 9, 2009 @ 9:13 pm  
  • Comment by: Az1

    I feel like crying. I’m a web designer and those designs put me to tears…not for a good reason. I have another website for you to check out. Link below:

    http://www.stevenlim.net

    June 10, 2009 @ 6:22 am  
  • Comment by: seizeseptember

    Quite funny. One point though, I don’t see a lot wrong with the jacksonsofpiccadilly.co.uk site, it’s in a whole different league than all the others. The only complaint you might have is that it’s not immediately obvious that you need to hover over certain flowers for the hyperlinks.

    Quite funny as well that THIS site has a black background and the ‘name’, ‘email’ and ‘website’ labels for this comment section are in black text!! At least for me they are anyway…

    swapnet Reply:

    that’s true. I think the website looked great…. but I was there, arms folded, waiting for the rest of the content to load. little did I know I was supposed to put my mouse over the flower to navigate.

    it certainly stands out, just that the navigation experiments doesn’t work at all.

    June 10, 2009 @ 7:34 am  
  • Comment by: @pmross

    Yes! Got both of my suggestions listed, thanks for that Matt. That really is quite an awful collection of websites :D

    June 10, 2009 @ 8:43 am  
  • Comment by: Matt

    I’m surprised http://www.lingscars.com/ didn’t make it, as seen on Dragon’s Den, perhaps where it should have stayed?

    June 10, 2009 @ 9:57 am  
  • Comment by: swapnet

    OMG. I love this list!!

    June 10, 2009 @ 10:10 am  
  • Comment by: simon owen design

    Nice list, made me think back to my first website:
    http://s1.gq.nu/midisx.html

    June 10, 2009 @ 12:05 pm  
  • Comment by: Mikah Sargent

    You can just look at the webking’s sites. They’re all terrible. He actually designed a website for a Star Trek character. (http://www.robertpicardo.com/)
    I figured he’d step it up, but no.

    Thanks for the laughs, and weird splotches in my eyes from the weird contrasts!

    June 10, 2009 @ 12:31 pm  
  • Comment by: Aneslin

    lolzzz great collection

    June 12, 2009 @ 7:02 pm  
  • Comment by: Djolhan Agence web

    Aiiie… Hurt my eyes,, your so true !

    June 12, 2009 @ 7:05 pm  
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    June 26, 2009 @ 10:25 pm  
  • Comment by: Maddurch

    The http://www.ingenfeld.de/ website has so many elements on purpose.
    It’s a benchmark.
    On the bottom it shows you something like “4 ms”.

    June 27, 2009 @ 2:03 am  
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    June 29, 2009 @ 1:45 pm  
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    June 29, 2009 @ 6:52 pm  
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    June 29, 2009 @ 6:53 pm  
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    July 1, 2009 @ 4:30 am  
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    July 1, 2009 @ 2:13 pm  
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    [...] Bad web designs are problems within the internet that could cause a person to lose interest in using the internet itself. The statement may be a little too conclusive but then again, one of the most annoying experience that a person could ever have is looking for vital information within the internet, where that person just want to try to give up due to too much failures to find what he or she was looking for, and when that person finally finds the information that he or she needs, he finds it in a web site that only a blind man would appreciate because the texts are virtually unreadable and in some cases, the texts cannot be highlighted nor be copied because of some copyright rules. While this is not something that would happen all the time, web designers and the web design company and community should make sure that all of their works are people friendly. They have to remember that the main reason why they are creating web sites is to make sure that people around the globe will see it. If the situation that was mentioned earlier happened on a merchant web site, it would be almost impossible that anyone would buy from that company at all. [...]

    July 1, 2009 @ 2:15 pm  
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    [...] wherever they may be, is to make sure that they deliver the people, everyone for that matter, from bad web designs, but for amateurs and non-tenured web designers, it should not be an excuse to create ridiculous [...]

    July 1, 2009 @ 2:16 pm  
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    [...] on his screen. He said he found it and said that he is more than willing to help me get rid of the bad web designs that were placed in there and I should fire my web designer. I was keeping my cool that time and I [...]

    July 1, 2009 @ 2:18 pm  
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  • Comment by: Felix

    LOL! This list makes me feel good because at least I felt that I am not the worst designer ever. I am not on the list hehehe!

    July 8, 2009 @ 4:47 pm  
  • Comment by: image hosting

    nice blog dude adding to twitter :D.

    July 10, 2009 @ 7:54 pm  
  • Comment by: image hosting

    There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.

    July 10, 2009 @ 8:10 pm  
  • Comment by: Los Angeles Web Design

    Did anybody ever inform the author/web designers that is behind this web designs regarding this issue? They should get a real proper advice. :)

    July 12, 2009 @ 12:37 pm  
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  • Comment by: Robin Bastien

    Haha, I find it amusing that Paperrad is considered a web design failure. It’s merely a purposeful abstraction representing their artwork. They’ve hit a lot of “best-of” comic collections for their printed work, and did the video for Lightning Bolt’s 13 Monsters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ2ni-bYL_o also in the same style. These guys are hilarious.

    August 11, 2009 @ 5:57 am  
  • Comment by: Mr.B

    if you want an example of a seriously terrible design … andyrutledge.com. grey-on-grey text, incredibly long pages, bright orange highlights for links, no images at all, no organisation…I’m shocked this guy is supposed to be a top designer.

    August 12, 2009 @ 10:50 am  
  • Comment by: Leasebam

    The web is full of awful websites and I have to admit I have a few. But the ones where I get visitors I do give them so more thought. However until then, getting vistors and SEO is the most important thing. Just as there are lots of awful site, there are also some wonderful designed ones, that no one sees, because looks were put before visitors.

    September 23, 2009 @ 10:06 pm  
  • Comment by: Purpose Web Hosting

    Ouchies! They’re so unsightly it’s no longer funny.

    December 4, 2009 @ 5:26 pm  
  • Comment by: pamela dowie

    your collection and thoughts were superb! Some of them look like they were built in the mid 1990’s and others well er, not even built just thrown in to the browser. Very funny :D

    January 25, 2010 @ 7:22 pm  

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