Using Paper Clips in a Web Design: Examples for Inspiration

A designer’s creativity is often showcased in the little details and touches that he or she incorporates in a design. Using common, familiar objects as design elements to accent and ornament a web page is a wonderful way of showcasing one’s attention to detail.

For inspiration, I explore the trend of utilizing paper clips by providing excellent examples to showcase how designers make use of them.

These People Comedy.com

Realistic paper clip used as a design ornament.

Blog.SpoonGraphics

A paper clip is used to hold up a piece of cardboard material, pinning up the RSS feed button.

Home Design Find

Here, multiple paperclips are used as ornaments to the design.

Viget Labs (teamviget.com)

A paper clip is used to hold up a strip of paper, with an important message that summarizes the purpose of the web page.

Point of Entry Consulting, Inc.

A paper clip is incorporated in the logo of the design.

Jeremy Thomas

Another use of a paper clip to hold up the name/logo of the website as well as the polaroid picture of the owner.

Robert Kwiatkowski

Robert Kwiatkowski holds up his logo with a paper clip.

Chemistry Recruitment

Paper clips are used to hold up a piece of paper with a testimonial of the service offered, and well as holding up a message that summarizes the intent of the web page.

Sabalan

A paper clip is used to hold together a stack of paper.

Leeds Web Design

Another example of a paper clip used as a design ornament.

If you’ve gotten inspired to incorporate them into your design, you can simply take a picture of a paper clip lying around the house or office, and then importing the image into your favorite digital image editting application. You can also create it yourself using a vector creation tool such as Adobe Illustrator.

What are your thoughts on using common objects such as office supplies (paper clips, post-it notes, stacks of paper, tape, etc.) as design elements of a web design? What are some cool ways of using them in a web design? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section.