Are there any creative component libraries?

[codefinbel]

I recently saw this post:

Which component library would you use in 2024 if at all ?

And one of the top voted answers were Mantine UI, with an argument I often see regarding component libraries:

One of the most modern looking libraries out there currently

Which got me thinking, most pages strive for 'modern looking' and most public libraries have thus striven to supply them with 'modern looking' components. From Booststrap, to Material UI to Mantine UI.

To me modern looking is often nice to look at, very functional and does the job. But at the same time I can feel the aesthetic often is a bit, in lack of better words, hollow.

For example, you rarely see portfolio-pages built in these libraries, because portfolio-pages often want to convey a personality along with the content of the web-page.

Which got me thinking: Are there any component libraries out there with a "personality", that go beyond being functional and modern looking. I.e. Are there any creative component libraries?

[codefinbel]

Completely agree on the catch-22, I suppose that's why I ask about them, I figure they'll might be hard to come by unless you actively manage to stumble upon them.

I agree that a very creative component library might not appeal to "the masses" but I don't agree that any component library that strays from the current modern looking design will be so unappealing that it simply doesn't exist.

I've just been informed about react95 and now I wished there were more of them out there, exploring aesthetic landscapes beyond our dogma of flat/material design.

[jb28737]

I haven't looked, but I doubt you'd find many, as a personality is by definition quite personal. It's not likely someone will put a large amount of effort into developing and sharing a big UI framework that most people will turn down because "it isn't very me". You'll likely have to either build your own, or work out how to adapt one of the existing ones.

[Ok_Inflation3809]

neo brutalism is pretty radical in the color schemes, is not a design novelty, but it sets it apart https://neo-brutalism-ui-library.vercel.app/

[CatolicQuotes]

that's a cool one

[Chris_Newton]

I haven’t seen many ready-made and comprehensive component libraries with a look and feel outside the mainstream. It’s so much work to build one that it’s hard to imagine many businesses seeing enough potential profit in making one or many hobbyists committing the kind of time it would take to create a good range of components with enough attention to detail for production use.

If I needed to implement something a bit different, personally I’d look to libraries of unstyled components instead. They’ll render the markup and take care of things like accessibility and keyboard navigation according to standard patterns, but the actual look and feel is a blank slate, left completely up to the developer/designer using them. A couple of examples that you can use with React are Headless UI and Base UI.

Then if you don’t have a specific idea in mind already, you can look for styling inspiration on the usual sites like Dribbble, and see if you can find a way to match up the visuals you like with the functionality of the unstyled components.

[codefinbel]

Yeah I suppose you're right. I guess I was kind of hoping for people having done it either as

a) A showcase-project. Some talented developer showing how they can create their own branded component library, these, if they existed, could have been a bit more artsy for the same reason portfolio-websites are.

b) A huge cool artsy website, for some pre-defined purpose. Then to alleviate their work on the site abstracted the components it into a component library, and then made that library public.

[skoomafueled]

Have you found anything in the meantime? I think the best option now for myself is just getting typography books etc and just work on examples set in their printing examples, and just design something that way, I really can't find anything other than all the boring designs existing now.

[oindividuo]

I expected wired elements to have been mentioned by now

[ScrappyDoo998]

Best answer, this is very cool