30 awesome splash screens to inspire you

A splash screen is a screen that appears when you open an app on your mobile device. Sometimes it’s referred to as a launch screen or startup screen and shows up when your app is loading after you’ve just opened it. When the loading is finished, you’ll be taken to a more functional screen where you can complete actions.

Splash screens appear on your screen for a fleeting moment – look away and you might miss them. Traditionally, you’ll see a logo and company name and, if you’re lucky, the company motto.

You might think of them as a waste of time, an afterthought or something not to bother thinking about. But they’re good for strengthening brand identity and perception. Google’s Material Design highlights that they’re the user’s first experience of your application. And first impressions count, right？

Take Skype’s splash screen. It shows their logo in pride of place, with a soft gradient. Then when the loading is ready, the icon will animate and bounce around. A nice bit of UX whimsy. Whereas there are other splash screens, like Medium and Etsy, which incorporate fun, relevant and bespoke illustrations that fit in perfectly with the brand and reinforce their identity, be it a form of dashboard design or a social media platform.

Sometimes an app doesn’t take very long to load. In this instance, you may come across a placeholder UI instead of a branded launch. Maybe your app doesn’t need to reinforce its brand identity in which case you’ll see core structure elements on your app upon open which don’t display any content like so: