Unless you’ve been living under a rock (or were just offline the past two days) you know that a lot of sites chose to “black out” in protest of SOPA and PIPA. Obviously these movements would greatly change how we interact with the Internet,  but I was also interested to see how sites would use design to “black out”. I don’t know about you, but I was pretty impressed.

I collected some examples of how all different kinds of sites chose to display their SOPA protests and came across some pretty cool examples.

I’m sure Google’s design approach is no stranger to you. Still, I felt the need to include it.

Did you check out TechCrunch‘s form of protest? Their site remained pretty much the same but they changed the logo.

Wikipedia‘s black out was publicized days before it actually happened so I was interested to see how the site would look on Wednesday. They did a really great job with both their messaging and their call to action. A simple zip code and you’re on your way to stopping SOPA.

Buzzfeed supported the SOPA cause by using black censorship bars across all of the text on their header. It’s a great way to get the censorship message across while giving people a chance to learn more about SOPA and contact their representative if they choose to.

WordPress took a similar approach with the censorship bar but it’s all over their homepage. It sticks with their simple design and is definitely eye catching.

One of my personal favorite blogs, allthatinspires.me also blacked out its page. It was nice to see that even smaller blogs took the time to make a difference. (Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t get my daily fix. Anything for a good cause!)

Cheezburger went with a lightbox approach. The pop up tells you everything you need to know and when you close out of it, the site goes back to normal.

Chris Brogan, very well known social media marketer, took a simple and informational approach and even added a video on the movement which I thought was a great touch.

In case you’re wondering how this helped, check out this article from Business Insider.

What were some sites that really stood out to you? Were you surprised to see some sites not take action?