Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2019/11/20-freshest-web-designs-november-2019/

In this month’s collection we’re seeing some minor trends, like the return of sliders, over-sized text, and liquid effects. But the biggest thing of note is a brand new trend: brutalist typography and layouts, made more appealing by soft, feminine color palettes. Enjoy!

Wolff Olins

Globally renowned agency Wolff Olins’ new site is engagingly simple, but when a company like this embraces a trend, you know it’s got staying power. Edge-to-edge text, and a brutalist approach softened with color, are both evident.

Universal Sans

Universal Sans is a variable font with a pretty awesome site that allows you to adapt the font for your own purposes. For many of us it’s as close as we’ll get to designing a typeface. Once you’re happy you can even buy your customized font.

Warner Music Norway

Warner Music Norway embraces a traditional slider to highlight some of the artists it represents. It works because there’s no text to read, you either recognize the musician or you don’t. Scroll a little and you’ll find on-trend brutalism.

Ackee

Ackee is self-hosted analytics software. Its site opts for a bold typeface for headings, and makes use of some beautifully illustrated palms to introduce brand colors. The subtle animation does an excellent job of illustrating how the product works.

Redscout

Redscout’s logo is big and bold, and stretches across the screen. It stays fixed in place as an outline as you scroll, before getting bold again when you reach the bottom of the page. The black text on white, and the overlapping grid is classic brutalism.

Low Intervention

Low Intervention embraces several of the current trends, most notably the liquid effect, and brutalism toned down by the use of a sophisticated color palette. Brutalism is still the dominant theme, with edge-to-edge content, and little whitespace.

Marble

Marble’s purpose is to bring together art and science to tackle some of the problems faced by children around the world. Its delightful site features maze-like text, with dozens of marbles rolling around referencing both problem solving, and play.

Hypergram

Never let it be said that you can’t make the logo bigger. Hypergram’s logo takes up the entire page, obscuring the portfolio. The changing background color is a nice effect, and offsets the work in the slideshow perfectly.

Vahur Kubja

Vahur Kubja’s site is one of the first sites we’ve seen to adopt the latest design trend: it’s relentlessly brutalist in all but one respect, the color scheme is a sophisticated minimalist palette of green, peach, and pink.

Mutha

Mutha’s site is big, brash, and bold. With heavy black text. Not the style you’d expect of a skincare company — which would typically be light, gentle, and unassuming. Which is exactly why this brutalist site stands out.

The Happy Hero

If you’re a big fan of this year’s brutalist trend, then you’ll love this micro-site for The Happy Hero, a self-help book about positivity. The site’s adopted brutalism and then subverted it, drawing inspiration from both Pop Art and De Stijl.

Devialet

Most people browse the web with the sound off, which presents a challenge to companies selling audio products. Devialet solves the problem brilliantly, with a swirling galaxy creating the impression of depth, range, and power.

Bruno Simon

What can you say about Bruno Simon’s site, other than you have to play it to understand it. Drive the toy truck around the site, knocking over awards and breaking the scenery. It’s not practical, but it’s fun, and a great showcase for his skills.

Readymag

Readymag is a browser-based design tool for creating simple sites. Its landing page features oversized typography, which is impactful, and fairly daring for a company of this type. They’re laying their cards on the table right away.

Climate Adaptation Australia

Alongside the nice, bold menu system, Climate Adaption Australia features one of the very few effective sliders you’ll see. Sliders have largely been discredited as a design pattern with poor user experience, but in this case it works.

Giovanni Rustanto

If brutalism is too much for you, you can let out a sigh of relief with this one. Giovanni Rustanto’s site is elegantly minimal in both visuals, and interaction. The pleasing burst of terracotta right at the end adds some much needed flavor to the color palette.

1017 Gin

1017 Gin’s site is a high-class mix of glossy magazine layout, and coffee-table book. The one-pager is understated, with just a nod to trends with undersized images. The way the page splits when you click buy, is lovely, because it’s unexpected.

Sedilia

Sedilia is a minimalish site, that exudes comfort, simplicity, and style. The product photography is great, but it’s the framing that makes the difference. The site also features excellent typography and an unusual choice of font (it’s GT Zirkon).

Gyro

Gyro is another site that features over-sized typography, and again it’s the company logo. Move your cursor and it explodes in an interesting 3D effect. Gyro also has all the hallmarks of brutalism, tempered by a lovely color palette.

Dorian Lods

Dorian Lods’ site is another example of the trend common among developers at present: a liquid effect. This is a particularly standout version, not least thanks to the way it integrates into the rest of the site, as a device, not a crutch.

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Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/DoBRGrjs3Qs/learn-new-creative-skills-with-these-leading-online-courses

A great mind never stops learning. So if you want to pick up a new skill or perhaps even branch out into a second career path, you'll want to check out these comprehensive training courses.

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Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2019/10/3-essential-design-trends-november-2019/

There’s always a balance between visual design and functional design. Many of the “rules” of design as we know them exist to make visuals more functional.

That’s not exactly true of all of the techniques that are trending right now. But sometimes rules are made to be broken, right? You can take these trends in and decide whether they work for you or not. (There’s no right or wrong answer.)

Here’s what’s trending in design this month.

1. Obscured Text Elements

When it comes to text elements, the first thought is often readability. Not with this design trend.

More design projects are showcasing text elements that are partially obscured or hidden within other elements. And while these designs look pretty cool and are visually stunning, whether it actually works might be more debatable.

Each of the examples below uses this trend in a slightly different way.

Granyon Party uses oversized text in a layered design – background, text, animated illustration – where the words are hyphenated and in a layer behind design elements. While the obscured text is fairly easy to read, the addition of hyphenation and a monotone color palette makes it a little trickier.

Lafaurie Paris uses black text over an image layer with dark coloring, leaving little contrast between the two. This makes the main text element a challenge in terms of readability on an otherwise visually stunning design.

Ride & Crash’s Paco the Judo Popcorn has a text layer that’s behind a semitransparent animated illustration. It’s not too difficult to read, but does make you stop and really think about the words on the screen. Use of space helps draw focus and make it a little easier to digest.

With all of these examples, the design has to weigh big questions: Is the visual display worth losing readability? Will visitors understand and interact with the design?

2. Animated Spheres

Circles have always been a popular design element. They carry plenty of symbolism and meaning and can set the right tone for projects. Circles are also a little less rigid than hard-edged elements, such as buttons or calls to action.

Bigger spheres with animation are a solid way to draw users into design elements and focus the eye.

This trending element might be pure decoration or serve a more functional role.

2nd Street uses large spheres down the right margin as a secondary level of navigation. The middle circles have a link and hover animation to help signal this action. The bottom circle is a decoration with movement that helps draw the eye and encourage users to move the mouse in that direction, activating the other circular buttons.

Eslam Said uses a large sphere in the center of the screen with simple movement to create visual interest in the portfolio website. The simple design and movement are hard to stop looking at with a soothing feel to them.

World of Incentro uses multiple spheres with small movements and subtle animation as a decorative element. Further, the design uses a red, circular cursor to encourage engagement with the design. (If you click around this site a little, you’ll also find that it makes use of the first trend mentioned here, with different layers of obscured text.)

3. Large Left Margins

This might be my personal favorite trend, as a fan of asymmetrical balance. These designs use large left margins and areas of whitespace opposite a more visually full right side with an art element that fades off the screen.

They create a beautifully imbalanced balance with visual weight that draws the eye across this screen.

But this style isn’t for everyone, especially if you really like more symmetry. The challenge with this style is how elements stack on smaller mobile or vertical screens. The result isn’t often as stunning as the desktop counterpart.

Ervaxx uses a simple animation paired with large bold text. The large font size offsets the weight of the animated blob on the right.

Lifted Logic carries a hero text element across white (ahem, black) space into a video. The use of space really pulls the eye across the text into the image and back.

Cognito uses balanced weights with text and line illustrations across the screen. Space, here, makes the design feel a little less busy with a lot of elements to take in at once – navigation menu, headline, secondary text, two buttons, animated illustration, and a chat box.

Conclusion

It’s possible to love the look of a trendy design, but never use the technique because you don’t find that it works with your content or in a way that focuses on usability. And that’s ok. That’s the beauty of trends; they spark conversation and push all designers to think bigger and better.

Do you tend to be more of a visual or functional designer? Most of us have fairly distinct tendencies and it’s good food for thought.

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Original Source: https://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2019/10/forget-trick-or-treat-here-are-5-horrifying-technologies-that-should-really-scare-you/

You know, I remember the good old days when all you had to worry about at Halloween was how to stop a gang of sugar-crazed 8 year-olds throwing eggs at your house. Not any more. Here are 5 emerging technologies that are bound to give you the creeps:

1. Quantum Supremacy

Perhaps the biggest tech news of 2019 came last month when Google announced “by mistake” cough that they’d completed a “10,000 year” calculation on their Sycamore quantum chip in 200 seconds. If the term “Supremacy” wasn’t sinister enough, the claim that this could render conventional encryption methods obsolete in a decade or so should give you pause for thought.

this could render conventional encryption methods obsolete

Just think about it for a second: that’s your bank account, all your passwords, biometric passport information, social security, cloud storage and yes, even your MTX tokens open and available to anyone with a working knowledge of Bose-Einstein condensates and a superconductor lab in their basement. Or not.

2. Killer Robots

To my mind, whoever dreamed up fast-moving zombies is already too depraved for words, but at least your average flesh-muncher can be “neutralised” with a simple shotgun to the face or — if you really have nothing else — a good smack with a blunt object. The Terminator, on the other hand (whichever one you like), a robot whose actual design brief includes the words “Killer” and “Unstoppable” in the same sentence, fills me with the kind of dread normally reserved for episodes of Meet the Kardashians.

autonomous drone swarms…detect their target with facial recognition and kill on sight on the basis of…social media profile

We already know for certain that Lethal Autonomous Weapons (LAWs for short…) are in active development in at least 5 countries. The real concern, though, is probably the multinationals who, frankly, will sell to anyone. With help from household names like Amazon and Microsoft, these lovely people have already built “demonstration” models of everything from Unmanned Combat Aerial Systems (read “Killer Drones”) and Security Guard Robots (gun-turrets on steroids) to Unmanned Nuclear Torpedoes. If that’s not enough for you, try autonomous drone swarms which detect their target with facial recognition and kill on sight on the basis of… wait for it…“demographic” or “social media profile”.

Until recently, your common-or-garden killer robot was more likely to hurt you by accidentally falling on top of you than through any kind of goal-directed action, but all that’s about to change. Take Boston Dynamics, for example: the DARPA funded, Japanese owned spin-out from MIT whose humanoid Atlas can do parkour, and whose dancing quadruped SpotMini looks cute until you imagine it chasing you with a taser bolted to its back.

The big issue here is the definition of “Autonomous”. At the moment, most real world systems operate with “Human in the Loop”, meaning that even if it’s capable of handling its own, say, target selection, a human retains direct control. “Human on the Loop” systems however, allow the machine to operate autonomously, under human “supervision” (whatever that means). Ultimately, more autonomy tends towards robots deciding for themselves to kill humans. Does anyone actually think this is a good idea?!

3. The Great Brain Robbery

If the furore around Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in the 2016 US Presidential election is anything to go by, the world is gradually waking up to the idea that AI can be, and is being used to control us. The evidence is that it works, not just by serving up more relevant ads, or allowing content creators to target very specific groups, but even by changing the way we see ourselves.

Careful you may be, but Google, Facebook and the rest probably still have gigabytes of information on you, and are certainly training algorithms on all kinds of stuff to try to predict and influence your behavior. Viewed like this, the internet looks less like an “information superhighway” and more like a swamp full of leeches, swollen with the lifeblood of your personal data (happy Halloween!).

4. Big Brother

I don’t know about you, but I’m also freaking out about Palantir, the CIA funded “pre-crime” company whose tasks include tracking, among other kinds of people, immigrants; not to mention the recent memo by the US Attorney General which advocates “disrupting” so-called “challenging individuals” before they’ve committed any crime. Call me paranoid, but I’ve seen Minority Report (a lot) and if I remember right, it didn’t work out well… for anyone!

This technology is also being used to target “subversive” people and organisations. You know, whistleblowers and stuff. But maybe it’s not so bad. I mean, Social and Behavior Change Communication sounds quite benign, right? Their video has some fun sounding music and the kind of clunky 2D animation you expect from… well no-one, actually… but they say they only do things “for the better”… What could possibly go wrong? I mean, the people in charge, they all just want the best for us, right? They wouldn’t misuse the power to make people do things they wouldn’t normally do, or arrest them before they’ve done anything illegal, right guys? Guys…?

5. The Ghost in the Machine

At the risk of wheeling out old clichés about “Our New Silicon Overlords”, WHAT IF AI TAKES OVER THE WORLD?!

I’ll keep it short.

Yes, there’s a chance we might all be enslaved, Matrix style, by unfeeling, energy-addicted robots. Even Stephen Hawking thought so. There’s also the set of so-called “Control Problems” like Perverse Instantiation where an AI, given some benign-sounding objective like “maximise human happiness”, might decide to implement it in a way that is anything but benign – by paralysing everyone and injecting heroin into their spines, perhaps. That, I agree, is terrifying.

But really, what are we talking about? First, the notion of a “control problem” is nonsense: Surely, any kind of intelligence that’s superior to ours won’t follow any objective we set it, or submit to being “switched off” any more than you would do what your dog tells you… oh no wait, we already do that.

Surely, any kind of intelligence that’s superior to ours won’t follow any objective we set it

Second, are we really so sure that our “dog-eat-dog” competitive approach to things is actually all there is? Do we need to dominate each other? Isn’t it the case that “super” intelligence means something better? Kinder? More cooperative? And isn’t it more likely that the smarter the machines become, the more irrelevant we’ll be to them? Sort of like ants are to us? I mean, I’m not sure I fancy getting a kettle of boiling water poured on me when I’m in the way but, you know… statistically I’ll probably avoid that, right?

Lastly, hasn’t anyone read Hobbes’ Leviathan? If a perfect ruler could be created, we should cast off our selfish individuality and surrender ourselves to the absolute sovereign authority of… ok, I’ll stop.

So, Are We Doomed or What?

Yes. No! Maybe. There are a lot of really scary things about AI but you know what the common factor is in all of them? People. We don’t know what a fully autonomous, super intelligent machine would look like, but my hunch is it would be better and kinder than us. What really makes my skin crawl are the unfeeling, energy-addicted robots who are currently running the show. In their hands, even the meagre sketches of intelligence that we currently have are enough to give you nightmares.

Candy, anyone?

 

Featured image via Dick Thomas Johnson.

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Original Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CreativeBloq/~3/3BqcxN66gQo/best-404-pages-812505

Creating 404 pages might not be the first thing you'll think about when making a website, but they are essential. While a 404 page is something that you ideally don't want visitors to see, the best ones turn the situation to the designer or brand's advantage.

More and more, we're seeing bespoke 404 pages that use wit, clever UX or beautiful design to sweeten the pill of finding yourself in the wrong place. Whether its some thoughtful CSS animation, a cool parallax scrolling effect, or just some smarter-than-your-average copy, there are plenty of ways to liven up your 404 error pages – as these examples prove.

The best 404 pages can become a mini-ambassador for the website itself. They might even be shared on Twitter or relevant blogs as an example of the site's commitment to customer service or unique design style. The 404 error pages we present here have achieved all this and more, so take a look and be inspired to think outside the box with your own.

01. Ready to go survival

We all love a good movie reference within a 404 page (and there are several of them included in our list). This survival site refers to The Matrix in its 404 page and gives you two options: clicking the red or the blue pill. Naturally, both keep you on the site. 

02. Carwow

This car buying comparison site helps you find the perfect car, but when you go off course, its 404 page provides a clever on-theme way to keep you on site. Visitors are presented with an 8-bit game style screen. All you need to do is hit the Start text to enjoy the simple horizontal scrolling game, where all you need to do is avoid obstacles and other cars. Give to a try.

03. Color of the Year

This site is dedicated to everything to do with PANTONE's Color of the Year. Everything about it has been beautifully designed, including its 404 page. The site goes into an impressive amount of depth, with sections on relevant colour systems, suggested palettes, and examples of the shade in use. Meanwhile, the 404 page takes a smart-but-simple approach. There's a short explanatory message and a swatch of PANTONE shade 404, which is a delightfully appropriate grey-brown, to match the user's mood when finding themselves there. 

04. Ueno

Image: Ueno

Ueno is a full-service agency with a standout 404 page. What you're seeing above doesn't capture the full effort that's gone into it: the hotdog is animated so it runs in an infinite loop through a surreal landscape, and there are several hilarious explanatory messages to explore. It's bonkers and totally unique – visit the error page here.

05. Gymbox

Gym Box is a gym company that aims to offer "the most unique and diverse classes in London". The limits of that claim might be the kind of magnificent '80s fitness spectacle that appears on its 404 page. Short shorts, crop tops and pelvic thrusting – what more could you want from an error page? 

06. Slack

Image: Slack

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that Slack's 2019 logo update was met with widespread horror, and its super-saccharine 404 page is sure to have its fair share of haters too. Go wrong in Slack, and you're directed to a magical landscape of lush foliage, mountains and rainbows, where butterflies, chickens and tiny little pigs roam free. The scene scrolls horizontally with your mouse movement, too (try it here). 

07. Purée Maison

Purée Maison is a creative agency specialising in communication strategy, and its characterful website is full of delightful animations (we'd recommend taking a look around). We're particular fans of this surreal 404 page, which somehow manages to perfectly capture the pain of hitting a digital wall. 

08. Pixar

Image: Pixar

Some people can take things just a little too much to heart. Pixar's 404 page, featuring Sadness from 2015's hugely popular Inside Out, is simple, straightforward and does the job. If it's representative of your reaction to getting a 404 error, though, then maybe you need to re-examine your life a little.

09. Matteo Vandelli

You don't need to be a major brand to put a bit of effort into your 404 page. We love this interactive example from graphic designer Matteo Vandelli. He's used the error page from his design portfolio as another opportunity to show off his creativity and design savvy. As the visitor mouses over the 404 text, it ripples and shifts like water. The effect is strangely mesmerising.

10. 20th Century Fox

Can't find the film you want? Fox Movies' site has a great way to inspire you for when you get a URL wrong; its 404 page pops up with a still from a cult movie, with a pithy caption and a selection of other films you might like to watch. We've spotted snippets from Edward Scissorhands, Revenge of the Nerds and Napoleon Dynamite, amongst others (take a look to see which one you get).

11. Cloud Sigma

Cloud Sigma is a cloud server and cloud hosting service operating in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific region. While flexible cloud servers are useful, they're not exactly fun, which we guess is why the company has made a little extra effort to inject some humour into its tongue-in-cheek 404 error page. We wonder how long it'll be before this helpful-looking junior developer gets poached by the competition.

12. BluePath

Another website to use humour on its 404 error page is Atlanta-based data strategy consulting firm BluePath. The page shows a map of Atlanta, with a dot on the other side of the page indicating the visitor is 'Wayyyy off the map'. In an extremely tenuous link, the map also includes data-driven info showing reported crimes in the area. "Why? Because it’s a crime you haven’t hired us yet!" Ah, these whacky data analysts.

13. Marvel

Marvel keeps things solidly on-brand by basing its 404 error page on the universe's Watcher. Perhaps because Uatu isn't much of a looker (sorry), Marvel has decided to pander to visitors more shallow than ourselves and add his eye only, against the backdrop of Black Widow. Extra cool points for making the eye follow the visitor's cursor round the screen. 

14. Kualo

Web hosting company Kualo has been in business for over 15 years – an eternity in internet time – and its 404 page harks back to yesteryear by treating visitors to a game of Kualo-themed Space Invaders. It's not perfect. The key strategy of picking off the fleet's outer edges to slow the invaders' descent doesn't work, for starters. But it is fun, and it can earn you a discount on your hosting deal if you manage to score over 1,000 points. Play it here.

Its inclusion in this article has also inspired US pest control company Pointe Pest Control to include its own Pest Invaders game on its 404 error page, complete with different flying and crawling bugs to spray. 

As Chloe Zollinger from Pointe says: "Reaching a 404 error page is most often frustrating for a site user. We understand how important user experience on a webpage is. To better our visitors' experience, our team dedicated themselves to creating an interactive game on our 404 page."

15. Waaark

French studio Waaark's 404 page is nice enough to look at, but it's better to listen to – although maybe not at work. Inspired by Stephen Hawking, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Portal, it uses a JavaScript text-to-speech tool called meSpeak to subject you to a sweary robotic tirade. Plug your headphones in and take a look.

16. Steve Lambert

New York-based artist Steve Lambert describes this as "the most awkward 404 not found page on the internet", and you know, he may well be right. It features an excruciating piece to camera that just goes on and on. We defy you to get to the end of his video without any part of your body clenching.

Next page: More inspiring 404 pages to explore

17. Victoria Spicer

Image: Victoria Spicer

Victoria Spicer is a set designer and prop stylist based in London. As you'd expect, her portfolio site is packed with beautiful photography, and her 404 error page is no different. It shows off her playful side while still keeping things looking polished. 

18. Figma

Even though we have a copy of Illustrator CC right here, and could play with anchor points and Bézier curves literally any time we want, we're still entranced by Figma's 404 page. Oversized 404 text is rendered in vectors that you can reshape to your heart's content. Have a go for yourself.

19. Airbnb

This 404 page from Airbnb features a simple-but-delightful animation of an unlucky girl dropping her ice-cream on the floor. Airbnb has built its reputation on being personable and friendly, and this 404 page suits its brand image perfectly.

20. Hot Dot Production

Hot Dot Productions has applied its 'where design meets technology' tagline to its impressive 404 page, which features the three numbers made up of hundreds of tiny dots that change direction or disperse in response to the visitor's mouse movements. Seriously cool. Play around with it yourself here.

21. Lego

LEGO can do no wrong in our eyes (have you read our piece on how Lego reinvented itself as a super-brand yet?). We love this 404 page with leading Lego Movie character Emmet taking centre stage, and, reminding us that everything is still awesome.

22. GitHub

You'd expect some tech wizardry from a website dedicated to code versioning. The 404 page targets a different kind of geeks with a simple Star Wars parody elevated by a smart parallax effect when you move your mouse. GitHub also has a nice 500 page for when the server breaks.

23. CSS Ninjas

The web design world loves ninjas. Often as part of a self-styled job title. Falling in with the trend (and, we guess, its name), the 404 page for CSS Ninjas features a clean, stylised illustration that reflects the site's general approach to design.

24. MailChimp

In autumn 2018, ultra-hip email newsletter service MailChimp underwent a rebrand, and its 404 page has a new look to match. The new-look error page features on of the off-beat, naive illustrations around which MailChimp's new branding centres. And really, what says 'I'm lost' better than a donkey with its head in a hole? 

25. Volta Footwear

Image: Volta

Volta is a footwear store based in Milan. Its website includes plenty of cool UI design touches, and we like that it's not just gone for a standard 404 page, either. Good quality, dedicated product photography with a quirky touch – a miniature marble statue that nods to the flagship store's Italian home – help elevate this error page. 

26. Bret Victor

Computer scientist Bret Victor's 404 page, inspired of course by René Magritte's iconic painting, The Treachery of Images, confronts the viewer with some challenging philosophical questions. If this is not a page, then what is it? What constitutes a 'page'? Is it a thing that can be truly said to exist? What is the 'this' that this apparent non-page is referring to? Is anything truly real? Makes you think, no?

27. IMDb

Another awesome, movie-based 404 error page can be found on the IMDb website. This comprehensive database of film facts has jazzed up its 404 page with iconic quotes from famous films, subtly edited to fit their new purpose. Take a look to see which one you get.

28. Bit.ly

Image: Bitly

The 404 page for link shortening service Bit.ly features a cute Pufferfish bobbing upside-down in an interactive sea. The stranded fish responds to your mouse movements, and subtly animation details in the clouds and seagull help create a calming mood.

29. DropBox

DropBox has replaced the Escher-esque impossible box that adorned its 404 page for years, with a similarly quirky illustration. We like to think of an abstract representation of everything going wrong – the wheels coming off. It's a nice, simple hand-drawn illustration that gets the message across well, with plenty of helpful navigation links for a top user experience.

30. eHarmony

The last thing you want to hear when you're looking for love is that it can't be found. Online matchmaking service eHarmony's 404 page softens the blow with the news that while the page you're after is unavailable, there are still about half a million fish left in the sea.

31. Starbucks

Starbucks makes good use of its primary product to illustrate its 404 message. In this instance, the tell-tales signs of a missing coffee cup are used to tell the story. There's also some jargon-free copy to help the user find what they were looking for.

32. Blizzard Entertainment

Video game developer Blizzard keeps it simple and on brand with its 404 page. An animated character grabs the attention with a message telling visitors 'We've dispatched a rescue murloc to guide you back to safety'. Not sure what 'Mmmrrgmgrrrgmmll!' means but hit the button and back to the home page you go. 

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