Minimalism is a design style that retains a basic and functional focus. It avoids overly complex designs, instead relying on clean, open space, typography and layout. Designers and internet users like this style because it allows viewers to enjoy attractive, functional design without being distracted from a website’s purpose and content. It shows that good design can be achieved without flashy effects. Here are some examples of attractive, minimal web designs to inspire you.
1. Red
A common trend in minimalism is to use a color scheme of white, black and gray, accented with a solid, vibrant color. The color is used sparingly to bring special attention to certain aspects, as well as guide the user’s eye around the page.
2. Simon Foster
This demonstrates that a website can be successfully designed by only including the most pertinent information. This one clearly reveals the designer’s name, an unadorned menu and a sample of his work to draw the viewer further into the site.
3. Xero Cloud Computing
This guide also uses minimal color to give certain elements priority in the visual hierarchy. The minimalistic method is also applied to the navigational design of the site. All the information can be found by scrolling down, and each section is differentiated simply by a slight change in background color. This eliminates the hassle of having to make multiple clicks to get to different pages, and makes it easy to mentally separate sections. All these characteristics exemplify the minimalistic style.
4. Nudge
This portfolio page simply features a brief company description and snapshots of portions of the company’s work, because that’s all it needs. The viewer can easily understand the purpose of this page, and the even spacing provides an airiness that allows for each item to be processed.
5. Lab FiftyFive
This “About” page is made interesting by the bright background, but represents another minimalism principle: an emphasis on typography. The bold use of this text – and the fact that it’s the only thing on the page – makes it the most important element, and it expresses the personality of the company.
6. Bora Aksu
Photography can be blurred to create an interesting, neutral background, like on this homepage. The photo represents the purpose of the website, but it doesn’t distract from the main elements: the photographer’s name and menu bar.
7. Lapka
This site is even minimal in the amount of information it discloses. The homepage scrolls to reveal several clean, gorgeous photos of its product in use. The tiny text stands out, despite its subtlety. The imagery is so engrossing and the sly changes in the nouns are so puzzling that viewers are given the desire to know more.
8. Mercer Tavern
Another example of beautiful design with only a neutral color scheme, this site differs from many minimalistic sites in that it creates interest through many different fonts and an unconventional grid system. It is also unique because it uses a horizontal scroll system, which could be a welcome change for users who like to interact with a website to learn more about it.
9. FLOWmarket
This site does a great job of grabbing and holding the user’s interest. An extremely simple navigation system, the words on the side scroll as you move the mouse, and become bold when hovered over. When an item is clicked, a popup window reveals its information. The homepage uses extreme white space, which draws attention to the slideshow of product photography. Again, no color is used, but striking photography and interesting navigation provides enough visual interest for the user to stay engaged.
10. Built By Buffalo
The honeycomb shape used to present this portfolio is obviously unique from the classic square, which makes this site original. There is plentiful white space to make the design very clean, and the photos are clearly the main purpose of the page.
Each designer’s interpretation of minimalism is slightly different, but these designs have certain qualities in common: white space, neutral backgrounds, limited text, bright accent colors and overall, simplicity. Look to these stunning examples as motivation as you explore your own version of minimalistic design.
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