Changing technologies have made animations smoother and lighter on the web, thus increasing their popularity as a website design trend. Entheos brings you a roundup of beautiful website templates that use JS animation, parallax and CSS3 animation effects to bring you cool transitions, animated backgrounds, content, text, graphics, icons,navigation links, pages that fold and tilt, images that flip, bounce, twirl, part reveal, or work with draggable scroll to give your website visitors visual delight and interactivity! These one-page and multi-page website designs lend themselves beautifully to personal and portfolio sites, professional art and photography websites, corporate, travel and restaurant websites, beauty and spa websites – and a whole lot more.
JS animation makes a range of movements possible while keeping the website lightweight, unlike Flash. Parallax scrolling using JavaScript and CSS techniques, creates an effect of 3-D depth with foreground images moving faster than background images. Scroll-activated animation and lazy animations of web elements attract the user but do not detract from the main content.
Although there are several creative examples of web designs using animation, designers should think long and hard before using animation for its own sake. Too many animations on a page can make it slow-loading and turn off a site visitor. Animation can be distracting from the main content and navigation. Another thing is that all browsers don’t fully support all animations. However, movement and action is part of the dynamic nature of the web, which is why animation is only going to get better as web developers and designers learn to use it more effectively.
Check out the website templates below to see beautiful examples of JavaScript based, CSS3 and HTML5 animation and effects in web design.
Emma Wilson Art and Photography Website Template
Elegant animation of navigation buttons and menu icons add interest to this
beautifully designed website for a design or photography studio.
The menu and web elements drop or slide into frame smoothly for
a visual treat in this website template for a beauty salon or spa.
Sam Born Responsive Portfolio Website Template
This excellent grid-based design has flip and drag elements and
draggable scroll for viewing of the portfolio.
CleverCo Website Template
This elegant corporate website has flipping menu buttons and sliding pages.
Royal Italy Restaurant Website Template
Pages drop into view on menu click, the page tilts to reveal the basic
menu with zooming effects to tempt the appetite, and page sections
pop up on hover to provide a rich user experience in this sophisticated
restaurant website template.
Statti – Responsive Bootstrap Animated Template
Each menu icon animates on click as the page slides into the frame and the scrolling slider smoothly reveals new images in this responsive Bootstrap animated template. 
Heaven – Onepage & Multipage Creative Template
Parallax effects, CSS3 animation on hover over text, icons, images and graphics
make this site an immersive experience.
Cutting Edge Responsive Parallax WordPress Theme
Directional hover gallery, fullscreen slideshow, parallax scrolling and CSS3 animations make this site a visual delight.
Smarton Corporate Website Template with Bootstrap, Parallax and CSS3 Animation
This Bootstrap HTML5 Theme with revolving slider, has parallax and CSS3 effects, an animated header, text, icons and a HTML5 video background.
Spirit Portfolio Website Template
This template features page tilt (accordion class) and zooming rollovers
reveal each model’s bio with photo in a most impressive way through
transforms.
Angel Models Portfolio Website Template
This portfolio is presented in a grid with flipping animations. Each page
slides in from the top like a curtain. Headlines form on the top of the page
with text animation.
Bartenders School Website Template
Menu animations and page transitions make this site a deliciously
smooth experience.
Anna Sienna Portfolio Website Template
This is a tantalising design that reveals and conceals, and features
a blinds-style animation on hover. Text, arrows and buttons are also
animated. The flipping slide transitions make an elegant portfolio
presentation.
J. Star Responsive Art and Photography Website Template
This template design with carousel has menu animation on hover and
font animation for headline text.
This website tickles the imagination and draws the viewer deeper into the site
with its animated menu, navigation buttons, images and page transitions.
This design has a creative slider that partly reveals the forthcoming slide
while the existing slide is still in view. Understated menu hovers and
transitions make this site a smooth experience.
We hope you enjoyed this collection of animated templates. But don’t go away!
We’d love you to check out our collection of great-looking HTML5 and CSS3
templates too! And do share our post if you found it useful.
