The web is littered with design galleries showcasing beautiful websites, but most such galleries focus on the site as a whole — where do you turn if you just want some inspiration for a navigation menu or a really slick sign-up form?*

We stumbled across Pattern Tap, which is a design gallery of sorts. But it breaks the showcased site down into specifics, like sites with awesome navigation menus, great looking web forms or really eye-catching typography.

In some cases, the overall designs of the featured sites are great. In other cases, not so much. But that’s bound to happen with you start breaking a design down into tiny components like great-looking code snippets or often neglected aspects of web design like sites with really good copy.

Pattern Tap also emphasizes the social stuff by offering “user sets” — if you find something you love, you can easily see who posted it to the site and what else they’ve contributed.

If you’re looking for some inspiration for that weekend web project, head to Pattern Tap and narrow your search. Just remember, Pattern Tap is a site for design inspiration, not your ticket to wholesale design theft.

* Yes, such a thing exists. Like pornography, you’ll know it when you see it.

See Also:

• Beautiful Websites: Pictory’s Ode to Spring
• Beautiful Websites: Former Apple Designer’s Amazing Photo Gallery
• Design for Readability First
• Slick Web Design Gets Easier Thanks to CSS 3′s Transform Tools