1st place winner

Intertapes

By Seva Varfolomeev


Enjoy the aesthetics of the lost and found tape records reflected in a visually compelling page. Lo-fi widgets of scanned tapes hide the embedded digitalized recordings, which you can also access from the interactive grid-like world map. Also, there are extra detailed illustrations of the tape formats popular from the 1960-1990s.

592

2nd place winner

Everything.can.be.
scanned

By Daniil Kurguzov


The draggable feature got absolutized in this designedly cluttered website. The idea was to create a collection of objects that don’t get much attention in everyday life by scanning them. Drag over all those tickets, pill blisters, and keychains in our own order, and don’t forget to explore the texts and a small game where you catch shadows, but they disappear.

439

Kebab gum

By the Kitchen Lager design team


Spoilers ahead: the chewing gum that tastes like a kebab still doesn’t exist, unlike the landing page promoting this treat. The website is simple and compelling: it opens with a large typography piece and uses animated color dots to emphasize where the story goes, while steady 3D packaging models give it a refreshing vibe.

123

OWN architecture and design practice’s website

By UMWELT


A minimalistic chest box with hidden gemstones: hover on the numbers—which won’t tell you anything specific—to find the spoilers of the design projects, carried out by the architects and designers at OWN. By clicking on the numbers, you’ll activate the page, causing photos, plans, and descriptions to appear. The “About” and “Contacts” sections also serve as triggers, opening well-concealed text above and below the number chart.

120

ALODO design agency’s website

By Chun Hua Lu


This website for a subscription-based design agency artfully combines neat typography and animation to create a smooth navigation experience. Some animations act as transitions and reveal new pieces of content, and others subtly spotlight essential details. Big, high-resolution pictures arranged over the black background grab just the necessary amount of attention and are balanced by texts.

49

1st place winner

Seen advertising agency's website

By Marie Estaire


This mainly green and beige company website first catches the eye with its bold font and funny animated character, then with its concept of a store, where 3D images of goods that come live on loading and go still as you hover over them can be added to the “checkout”. There are also tiny objects you can drag around the page.

301

2nd place winner

All around us* brand’s website

By Siarhei Plashchynski


Siarhei Plashchynski designed a trendy b/w page for a clothing brand featuring a custom cursor and a huge typography piece that moves below animated photos. Each photo leads to a new page with a detailed description and more hi-res photos of a product. All along the way, typography acts as one of the main characters interlaced in the gridded canvas.

286

Neha Hattangdi’s personal website

By Neha Hattangdi


Take a look at the one-piece portfolio for Neha Hattangdi, where project descriptions precede neatly arranged sets of images and video, some of which launch on load or are hidden in folded galleries. There are no extra distractive elements—just contrast above-all-page menus on both sides of the screen.

172

Belén Valverde’s portfolio

By Belén Valverde


Simple in structure and rich in contents, this graphic designer’s website puts all cards on the table from the onset. Vivid visuals take all of the screen widths and change at a comfortable pace, inviting you to explore further. A two-option menu in the upper right corner leads you to the gallery of Belén Valverde’s works with concise text and extra visuals on a click. At the bottom of the page, you’ll see a grainy video, which delicately finishes the viewing experience.

139

Anton Rahlwes’ personal website

By Anton Rahlwes


Anton Rahlwes created a minimalist portfolio where all of the texts stick to the top and above all page contents. The text tells the bare minimum, with the stress put on still images, slightly fading on hover, and strictly aligned on the invisible grid.

69

1st place winner

Heliotropy

by Studio CRONICA


A charged-up website lit by a yellow animated beam explores two stories of Heliotropy’s founders. Each of the personal pages appears brimmed with draggable text, photos, videos, handwritten notes, naive illustrations, and even embedded music balanced with a mono-colored background and smooth scroll.

505

2nd place winner

Hayal & Hakikat

by Marina Meyer


The website tells a poignant story of Turkish convicts who had to be photographed with their palms on the show so the Sultan could decide whether they would live or die. As you scroll down the page, multiple centuries-old photos of people appear, flickering as if the photoshoot is still going on. The flow is sometimes interrupted by intertitles explaining one thing or another.

389

Light beam

By Anton Repponen


This is a photo essay dedicated to light, carefully caught by Anton Repponen. Opening with a poem and a dualistic heading that crowns a photo, it goes on as a physical album that’s scrolled horizontally. Each photo emerges from the dark and holds a small number and a geo-mark. A subtle, precious detail is that in the upper left corner, you can spot a tiny illustration: the outline of the light beam shining through the photo.

111

Project: Welcome

By Gabriela Basta


Project: Welcome is a landing highlighting a cognominal book that speaks about the migrant crisis. One of the powerful choices Gabriela Basta made for this piece is that while you scroll, the text partially appears, fills its own blank spaces, and then fades, leaving only the most essential numbers and phrases. Then comes a gallery where you can click on the book previews to see the details, an e-shop page to buy the charity book, and credits powered by exquisite typography.

95

Website for NN Konrad typeface

By Anton Studer and Martina Meier


Beware: this website promoting a modern remake of the first printed Roman typeface NN Konrad has a nerd section. Actually, the whole page is dotted with stories and historical facts backed with black-and-white surrealistic illustrations. The animated narration smoothly follows the story behind the typeface and uses it throughout the page as a beau geste.

86

1st place winner

Roman Sazonov’s portfolio

By Roman Sazonov


Explore this highly interactive website on load and hover. On top of the strong typography, the above-all-pages 3D element, a custom cursor and popping animations, the designer integrated dozens of hi-res visuals.

1124

2nd place winner

Website for Wow typeface

By Carol van Waart


“Wow” is an artistic project that re-thinks typography through abstraction. The page starts with an animated 3D object that rotates and transforms as you observe it, and offers two typeface variations to switch between. Both subpages show the creation of the typeface through stories, colorful sketches, and samples.

Each category comes with first and second place prizes.

1st place winners:

  • an Awwwards Professional plan for one year,
  • a $800 gift card from TYPE01 font store,
  • a lifetime access to 3 courses from SuperHi.

2nd place winners:

All winners get:

  • a yearly Business plan subscription to Readymag,
  • a special excellence digital badge to add to their website,
  • a recognition through all Readymag social channels,
  • our swag bag filled with design goodies.

Winners from the shortlisted entries are determined through online public voting. The shortlist itself is selected by the Readymag team.

Readymag Websites of the Year 2023

Awards and prizes

Past-year winners

Choose the best website in each category:

  1. Impact
  2. Interactivity
  3. Self-promo
  4. Storytelling
  5. Typography