Savvy marketers and designers know that investing a little extra time in designing and writing content for error 404 pages can pay dividends in terms of engaging users and showing off a bit of brand personality.
We’ve looked at lots of error 404’s and here’s our list of the best 40 we could find, scored in no particular order on the basis of either good design, good copy, humour, originality, customer engagement or a combination of all of these.
i-am associates
It’s not hard to work out why we thought this error 404 page was worthy of a mention. The question is, which came first, this page or Lady Gaga’s notorious meat dress?
The Sun
Classy copy from The Sun Online, as you’d expect from the UK’s favourite tabloid!
Scottish National Party
We looked at the error 404 pages from all of the major UK political parties, and the SNP won hand’s down for being completely random!
The Onion
We loved the copy on The Onion’s error 404 page not to mention the accompanying photo.
useit.com
This page isn’t funky, but it’s exactly what you’d expect from Jakob Nielsen. Simple. Clear. Concise. And of course usable.
iContact
Original topsy-turvy error 404 page from iContact. Let’s hope their emails don’t come out that way!
Wonga.com
The rather off-brand error 404 page from Wonga.com gets our vote for originality.
WhipCar
We chose WhipCar’s error 404 page because it was very on-brand, helpful and cute.
Hilton
Round of applause to the Hilton. After much searching around hotel websites, at last we found an original error 404 page.
Eurostar
Eurostar doesn’t win awards for design, but the copy made us chuckle – a bit.
Apartment Home Living
We didn’t like this website – sorry! But the error 404 page caught our attention. Nice.
CSS Tricks
Clever error 404 page design from CSS Tricks. No headline or links, but given their target audience, that really doesn’t matter.
B&Q
No awards for originality here, but we liked this for an honest error 404 page.
Nexus
OK, so we liked this error 404 page from Nexus. That royalty free goldfish looks familiar!
Hummingbird Bakery
Sweets! Did someone say sweets? This error 404 page from the yummy Hummingbird Bakery whet our appetites.
Bitly
This is just odd which is why the error 404 page from bitly gets our thumbs up.
Underscore
It was the “go back, friend, go back!” that did it for us. Well done Underscore.
iStockphoto
iStockphoto was the fifth image library we tested (yes we’re that exciting) and came up with the most original error 404 page from its competitors.
Delete
We’re still trying to work out why there’s the silhouette of a sheep in this error 404 page.
NextWave Performance
Very clever error 404 page from business process experts NextWave Performance.
Network Solutions
This is by no means the most creative design, but if you read the copy in red you’ll know why we voted for this error 404 page.
Copy Blogger
We can’t get enough of the film Cool Hand Luke, so this error 404 page is definitely in our top 40.
The Telegraph
As you’d expect, The Telegraph’s error 404 page is very sensible. The cartoon is awesome.
Marvel
This error 404 crept into our top 40 list at the last minute. Well done Marvel.
Groupon
Groupon never misses a trick to capture yet another subscriber’s email address. Cheeky.
Cuban Council
Great error 404 page from Cuban Council, design and branding agency from the US.
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
We liked MoMA’s error 404 page as they actually used a real work of art. We wondered how the artist must have felt?
Hootsuite
Last but not least, Hootsuite’s error 404 page. We do love Owly. Although Tweetdeck is better 🙂
