3D UI Design – Inspiration, Tools & Free Resources

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Flat-design is out this year. The latest trend in UI design is 3D elements and dynamic looks. Here’s a collection of 3D UI inspiration, tools, and free resources.

You may also be interested in my last article about UI trends: Voice Control, 3D Illustrations & Face Masks in Current UI Trends

Common 3D elements

Trending dynamic/3D elements in user interface design are:

  • 3D humans & hand gestures
  • Floating UI cards & widgets
  • Gradient spheres
  • Weather icons
  • 3D logo & favicons
  • 3D blocks
  • UI mockups in real-life footage (AR/VR)

Inspiration for 3D UI Design

UI design in 3D is mostly used for social media content and marketing material. It creates a “wow”-effect. But it is also used for illustrating futuristic concepts of AR and VR products.

Here’s a list of 3D UI design inspiration, with credits in the image description.

3D in UI mockups

Designs where there’s a UI screen, but elements in the screen has been made into 3D objects.

3D Ui mockup
1d43a345182131381b99bfd4bde1e47d
Tran Mau Tri tram
3D UI Design
Imran Hosen

AR & VR

Combining real-life footage with 3d UI mockups.

Floating 3D ui design
Carl Hauser
3D UI Design
UploadJosh Ackerman

3D UI Illustration

Illustrations with 3D humans, logos, and floating cards have been especially popular. Here is the inspiration for 3D illustrations that were made for user interfaces

3D Humans & Floating UI cards

3D UI Illustration
Vikiiing
3f8908409ca26cd22c43d6f9bf6e6d31
Peter Tarka

Logo

3D logos and related

3D UI logo
David Kovalev
3D UI logo
Tran Mau Tri Tam
3D UI blocks
Dash

Tools

If you want to create your own 3D UI elements, there’s a lot of 3D UI Tools that you can use.

The common 3D software Blender and Octane work as well. But they may not be the best suited for UI elements. See the list below for some tools.

The Best 3D UI Tools

  1. Vectary
  2. Spline
  3. After Effects
  4. Naker.io
  5. Drama.app
  6. Box Shot
  7. Figma plugins/files

Some of the resources was found on this video by Punit Chawla on YouTube. Check it out below!

Free 3D UI resources

In my post about the best free Figma Community files, I also included some free 3D files. Here are more!

Vic
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Naga Tarun
Anthony Aubertin
Pablo Vargas
Alzea

Thanks for reading! I hope this was helpful.

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