We all tend to spend a lot of time behind our computer screen. It’s been known for a long time now that people rather search something on the web then open a book.
What do we want when we visit a website? We want to feel at home, feel comfortable, relax.
A screen is a lifeless thing, so lets bring life to it! Wood is a natural element that gives you a warm, cosy feeling. It’s been around for some time now, but is a still very popular and graceful element in webdesign.

I’ve put together a bunch of great examples of wood-use in web design. Enjoy. (be sure to scroll all the way down, the best category is the last one )

1. Wood as a background
The wood replaces the background-color

Simple, clean, beautiful site that rates websites created with CSS. Using the wood, but making it special by darken it.

Flash website, portfolio from a Belgian webdesign company. They combine the wood with stone. Very natural colors, with a fresh touch of blue and a nice pattern.

A little bit of a daredevil. Wood is the only background. Text and images do not have an extra colored background but are placed on the wood.

This one has a very nice woodstructure.

Simple wood planks as background.

If starbucks is using it, it’s cool.

2. Wood as a part of the decor
The wood is also used as a background, but represents a desk, a wall or a floor. On top of it is mostly a sheet of paper or other objects.

Very nice design. He combines the wood with leather. There is a leather couch on the bottom and the background of every article and sidebar section is also leather.

This is awesome! The site is a portfolio and is supposed to be some kind of wooden table with a action-figure on it. The action figure is the designer.

A typical example of a “hi, this is my desk” usage of wood.

This guy seems to have dropped everything on the floor.

A design that combines multiple styles. There’s the ripped paper with a sketch on it and handwritten fonts. But the wood has a gradient and the black transparent box is giving it a rather glossy touch.

The ruler is gone now but I liked it. Great example of a “desk”

3. A Jungle
My personal favorite. There’s not only simple wood but also a lot of flowers and plants.

Beautiful website, even has a “foliagemeter” where you can set the amount of foliage. You can find the jungle in every little detail, be sure to scroll down to the “jammin’ to”. Every time I visit the site I just want to jump in that boat..

Wooden shelves on a wall with a garden view. Very nice wood structures.

I’m not sure about this… it’s all great by itself, but it doesn’t all match. Still a nice example. The rainbow is awesome!