Pinterest is much more than a simple online pin board for drooling over pictures of George Clooney. The social media site continues to impress web designers with its nontraditional layout. Since the sites inception, a massive amount of start-ups and social platforms have switched to the image-heavy format of Pinterest.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest acts as an online pin board. It emulates a true pin board like one you may have in your home or office. Pinterest provides a place for you to collect and share your favorite images and ideas from all over the internet landscape. Groups of friends use the online pin board to share these ideas and images in a unique and beautiful way.

The Design

The main innovative concept behind Pinterest’s web design points to the use of image blocks and tiny links within each block. A photo fills the majority of each block, while the “like,” “re-pin” and “comment” links help to make each block seem like a separate mini-web page.  An extensive array of different characters and designing materials make the entire site extremely successful. This design solves challenges in a beautiful way, and breaks traditional chronology layouts without scaring people away.

While the designers and developers obviously do a great job, they do not necessarily accomplish anything exceptionally creative. The extensive planning involved in the design makes it very clean and clear. Very few sites accomplish the amount of viewer loyalty created by Pinterest through web design, but Pinterest designers prove that organization, eye-catching imagery and useful features drive consistent views. Sites like Quora and Chill.com utilize the same design elements derived by Pinterest.

What Drives Pinterest’s success?

Pinterest makes it extremely simple to like something on individual sites and learn the interest of an individual person through personal boards. While people process and “pin” photos quickly and easily, most individuals get tired of reading text. By highlighting the use of images and minimizing text to a few tiny links, Pinterest makes its website remarkably accessible. In a world moving at such a rapid pace, this accessibility and ease of use save the consumer time while browsing the website. The photo-centric, block-style design continues to gain popularity for these reasons.

While the photo-centric layout drives immediate interest, Pinterest keeps its users coming back by providing ample space for sharing and commenting. Web users always enjoy re-visiting websites that give them their own creative canvas. Recent research suggests that businesses promoted on Pinterest receive more traffic than on Google+, LinkedIn or YouTube combined.

Changing the World of Web Design

Each day, thousands of websites are built and launched throughout the web. While some find a way to drive acceptable traffic rates, most lose themselves in the massive crowd of endless website competition. When a website experiences as much success as Pinterest has over the last few years, web designers definitely take note. Naturally, these designers try to emulate the elements of the successful site and incorporate them into their own platforms. Through clean layouts and a unique style, Pinterest creates a shining example of web design success for any budding designer.