Design, UI, UX, Inspiration, Website Examples
14 Horizontal Scrolling Website Examples from Around the Web
Latest Modern Horzontal Scrolling Websites in the Wild
Vertical navigation is the norm we’re all accustomed to and we’re used to seeing on most websites. In fact, this is always the safest choice for giving users intuitive navigation without affecting the user experience. However, some creative designers go the other way and subvert the user’s expectations with a plot twist. Horizontal scrolling, when done right, can make a website more interesting, fun, and most importantly, memorable. This is why, for today’s article, we have gathered 14 horizontal scrolling websites done right.
All websites in the article are new and live, launched in the past couple of months. So let’s enjoy the creations of great web designers from all over the globe.
Update Oct 2023: The UI/UX Design Trends of 2023 are out to replace minimalism with bolder, more diverse, and more experimental digital experiences. Check them out.
1. Transmissions: Horizontal Scroll Project Navigation Page
The first website serves as an education project around the legacy of Cristobal Balenciaga. This project is directed to International Fashion Schools and their students, which provides a firsthand immersive experience into Balenciaga’s universe through research, reflection, and creation. We see a horizontal layout and horizontal scroll on the project page where young designers develop their own personal creative project that ties their vision to Balenciaga’s work.
- Subject: Fashion
- Design Strengths: The website has a diversity of layouts for the main pages. Horizontal scroll works ideally on the project page, allowing you to easily scroll through the gallery and choose which project to view.
- Country: Spain
- Designed by: Zorraquino
2. Avantt Typeface: Modern Horizontal Scrolling Website
The microsite presents the new Avantt typeface by Displaay Type Foundry. This is a horizontal scroll website, diverse in forms, shapes, and relations to the modernist distinctive character.
- Subject: Typography
- Design Strengths: Creative and usable interactive design with a smooth horizontal scrolling experience. It showcases the typeface in all its glory while scrolling triggers the animations.
- Country: Czech Republic
- Designed by: Creative Nights
3. Audento Digital: Clean Horizontal Scroll Website
Here we have a horizontal scroll website unique user experience and an attractive color palette. Very modern and high-tech, in dark mode. The horizontal scroll doesn’t overwhelm the user, as the design and code are very clean.
- Subject: Digital Advertising Agency Portfolio Website
- Design Strengths: Clean website design with a generous amount of white space. Seamless transitions and animations.
- Country: India
- Designed by: Audento Digital
4. Creative People: Animated Grafitti Horizontal Scroll Experience
Short and sweet single page horizontal scrolling website with creative animations along the way. This awesome website serves as a landing page for Creative People’s partnership program and offers an interactive tour while explaining the program. The journey ends at the contact form.
- Subject: Digital Marketing and Web Developing Partnership Program
- Design Strengths: Creative and gimmicky. Custom illustrations and animations. Short and sweet.
- Country: Russia
- Designed by: Creative People
5. Scepter & Sword Wine Co: Renaissance Photography Horizontal Layout
Here we have a very luxurious-looking horizontal scrolling website with Renaissance photography. With white fonts and dark background, it showcases the story and vibe of the wines in a clear interactive way.
- Subject: Wines eCommerce
- Design Strengths: Gimmicky, short, and clear. High contrast.
- Country: USA
6. The story of Venus: Mixed Horizontal and vertical Scrolling Experience
This website is a non-commercial project by Loonar Studious. Serving as a museum, it takes inspiration from Ancient mythology and Renaissance art to present the beauty and sexuality of the roman goddess and universal muse, Venus.
- Subject: Education, History
- Design Strengths: Clean and modern. Parallaxes and micro animations. Works great with the Renaissance artwork.
- Country: Ukraine
- Designed by: Loonar Studios
7. Studio—BA®: Horizontal Layout Scroll Navigation
With fewer images, this horizontal scrolling website builds its visual experience through micro animations. It has big fonts and short paragraphs, easy to scan and read. It also mixes horizontal with vertical layouts throughout the entire website.
- Subject: Multidisciplinary Design Studio
- Design Strengths: Clean and easy to read, fewer images, but more micro-animations and transitions. Mixes horizontal with vertical layouts.
- Country: United Kingdom
- Designed by: Bruno Arizio
8. Oh Happy Days: Fun Cartoony Interactive Horizontal Experience
A happy design for a happy eCommerce website for anatomical and deodorizing insoles. The horizontal layout is organized into colorful boxes, making it easy to scan, and features cool animated cartoon illustrations.
- Subject: eCommerce, Wear
- Design Strengths: Well-organized into boxes with contrasting colors, cool animations, and cartoons. Short but sweet.
- Country: Greece
- Designed by: Big Horror Athens
9. Blindsight: Mixed Layouts with Horizontal Scrolling Memories
Blindsight is a short film created by a collaborative group of designers and artists and directed by Danil Krivoruchko. The film is based on the eponymous sci-fi novel by Peter Watts. Here we have a great mix of different scrolling experiences: vertical on the homepage, custom wheel scroll for the memories navigation, and horizontal scrolling for each memory page.
- Subject: Short Movie Promotion Website
- Design Strengths: Gimmicky and futuristic. Different scrolling experiences on each type of page. Interactive and well-animated and organized.
10. Tiger Tells About Voodoo: Animated Mixed Scrolling Website
Have you ever wanted to learn more about voodoo, its history, values, branches, spirits, and everything else? You’re in luck. The creator of this website has it all in a beautifully designed and organized website with scrolling animations, hand-drawn illustrations and comics, and more.
- Subject: Education, History
- Design Strengths: Interactive, personal, hand-drawn, and animated. Mixed scrolling.
- Country: USA
- Designed by: Anna Sherruble
11. Cristobal Balenciaga Museoa: Minimalistic Horizontal Scrolling Website
This digital exhibition unveils ten representative pieces from the Museum’s collection. All are linked to ten significant milestones in the institution’s activity this past decade, and in which ten of Balenciaga’s most inspiring values are displayed. The digital museum offers a tour in a professional minimalistic style, very pleasant to experience.
- Subject: Education, Fashion
- Design Strengths: Minimalistic and clean, well-structured, easy to navigate, micro animations.
- Country: USA
- Designed by: Koalition
12. Edoardo Smerilli: Macro Style Horizontal Project Studies
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- Design Strengths: gdfgfd
- Country: Italy
- Designed by: Niccolò Miranda
13. 2022 Year Ahead: Horizontal Scroll Interactive Digital Story
Here we have a horizontal scrolling website serving as a canvas to promote the United Nations Development Programme’s Sustainable Development Plan for 2022. Its layout reveals different rooms and sceneries for you to explore and read about the program.
- Subject: UN Development Program
- Design Strengths: The horizontal scrolling helps to explore the panoramic scenes that follow the story.
- Country: USA
- Designed by: Thunderfoot
14. Henri Heymans Portfolio: Minimalistic Design with Horizontal Layout
And our last example is this modern minimalistic front-end developer’s portfolio website with horizontal scrolling and unusual project navigation worth checking out.
- Subject: Front-End Developer Portfolio
- Design Strengths: Modern macro style clean website. The horizontal scrolling works great with the design.
- Country: France
- Designed by: Henri Heymans
Final Words
To summarize the important lesson we learned from these examples:
- Keep your content organized
- Ensure your users can locate your main navigation at all times
- Keep your design clean and simple
- Use a lot of contrast and white space
- Experiment with UI animations, parallax effects, and other interactions, but don’t let them distract the users from your content.
If you manage to plan it well and organize your content, choosing the horizontal scrolling option won’t hurt the user experience or the usability of your websites. Hopefully, this selection of creative horizontal scrolling website examples has convinced you to try the less popular approach so you could get creative and experimental.
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