Minimalism on the Web

Introduction

Todays web design has really skewed our look on minimalism and has made it into something it isn’t. Before your eyes is a very generic minimal web design. If a client ever asks you to make a minimal web design for them, they probably want something similar to this. An über white filled website, with one key colour, maybe two if you’re lucky, none if you’re unlucky. Extremely simple and not much to look at. No textures, all solid colours maybe a slight gradient every here and there, perhaps a very subtle grain. Before you learn what minimalism in web design is, I suggest you take your existing views on it and throw it out. While some key points will remain the same, other certainly will not. I cannot stress this fact enough, this does not need to be done with every design. Not every design needs to look like something from day to day like, some definitely shouldn’t, you must use your own judgement and decide what your design/project needs. A white and few-coloured design is sometimes exactly what is needed. I am just writing this to state that the current state of minimal web design is almost entirely perceived as one kind of white boring design.

Colour & Texture

While yes, a minimal web design can be very dull and uncoloured, it definitely does not have to be. And yes, everything can be a solid colour, but it doesn’t need to be. Now, I’m a design that loves to make my designs feel more natural and in tune with our lives in the real world. This is not something that should be done with every design and should be done judging on what suits the design/project best. I often use textures that we see in our day to day lives, such as woods, metals, glass, plastics, papers, plant-life, and so on. I use these textures in my design, even very minimal ones. This does not make the design any less minimal, maybe just a less boring, which is a good thing.

Layout of content

What largely makes a website minimal or not is good organization in ther layout. There should be a fare amount of spacing between all the elements on the page. Good spacing is key to a good and minimal web design. Too little spacing will make a design look very crammed and crowded, upping the spacing will make it feel less overwhelming. A place where spacing is often overlooked is in the typography. The lines in a paragraph should have quite a bit of spacing between them, not only does this look better, but it also makes the text easier to read. Also, reduce any unneeded content, don’t add every feature under the sea just because you can, ad the ones that will be most useful. Not only will this slow down your site, but it will feel bloated and clumsy.