Minimalistic design rules – 7 advantages and main style features

If you want to create a website, the main rule to follow is not to overdo it. The so-called minimalistic design has been helping web designers in this for several years. By the way, he is now at the peak of his popularity. Today we will try to figure out what this style is and what its main advantages are. By the way, if you have already decided on its implementation, we advise you to take a look at a selection of simple minimalistic templates.

What is minimalistic design?

In general, this concept can be defined as the most laconic style, characterized by simplicity and accuracy. Basic elements (colors and fonts) are also used with an emphasis on simplicity and with extremely limited palettes, which most often can only include one or a few color / font variations.

Details and free space are the main factors that shape the aesthetics of this trend. You can find many interesting works on the topic at awwwards.com.

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Modern minimalism in web design

It can often be found in elements of flat layouts or in Material Design. The basic concept and characteristics remain virtually unchanged over time, for example:

• Many people prefer to create designs in predominantly white and black color schemes.
• Typically, designers leave a lot of white space – especially around the center image.
• Sans serif fonts are also used.

The above points are not basic requirements for minimalist design, but they are quite common and can serve as kind of indicators of style, regardless of the time period.

What really matters in modern minimalism is the emphasis on one kind of content, without competing with other elements. It can be a photo, a logo, or a simple block of text.

Navigation, contact information and other objects are almost always less visible in the layout (although they may appear in the form of a hamburger menu or appear when scrolling).

uppertodo.com

Recently, designers are also starting to include animation in such sites, following the trends and wanting to make the web page more “live” and interactive. However, you need to be extremely careful with this. Animation should be unobtrusive and done in the same style (colors, font, etc.) as the main design.

Another important trend in minimalism is text size. Performers prefer sharp calibration – super-small or giant lettering with contrasting backgrounds and simple images. High contrast is great for creating focus with simple structure and emphasis on “right” content.

Benefits of minimalist design

Now let s move on to the most interesting, namely, to the advantages of this direction and their use in real projects.

1. Lack of tinsel and disorder

What is excessive is not healthy. When creating a layout, it s very easy to get carried away, to include everything you can, and as a result, you will get “a bad dish with good ingredients.” As we said above, one of the most important principles of minimalism is not to clutter up the site with unnecessary objects, without which the user can well do. Each of the elements can be beautiful and functional on their own, but when they are put together, they start to distract and spoil the overall picture.

Let s take an interior design studio template from MotoCMS as an example:

motocms.com

The first thing we pay attention to is a contrasting center block and a text heading. Next, the look falls on the categories / services of the company, where the visitor can immediately find what he needs. Nothing extra. Thanks to this, the layout is very popular.

By removing unnecessary details and simplifying it, you get a clean visual image that is easily perceived by the audience. Find more solutions like this in our selection of minimalist MotoCMS templates.

2. Focus on what s important

Along with reducing clutter, a minimal design helps you focus on the most meaningful elements of a web page. By making them more visible, you will show site visitors what to pay special attention to, and you can significantly increase the conversion of the project.

3. Increase creativity

The limitations of the minimalist style actually force the designer to be more creative. Most often, it is much more difficult to remove and discard any details, so that only the main thing remains in the template. Therefore, the search for simple solutions for the most effective implementation is a rather useful aspect of creativity, which contributes to the development of non-standard thinking of the performer.

4. Usability

Obviously, a layout with fewer elements is much easier to work with. Take Facebook, for example – it has a million features, thousands of different items, and quite a few distractions. The average user needs to spend quite a long time to learn how to use the platform and how to behave on it. For many, this is really difficult.

Alternatively, consider something like Tumblr or Instagram. Services also have quite a few features, like any social network, but the functionality becomes clear after a few minutes spent on the site.

The point of this fable is that minimalistic design (and simple usability) is guaranteed to make your visitors feel at home and will allow them to adapt much faster to the peculiarities of a web project.

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5. Less coding / development

When creating any template, it is advisable to think over how it will subsequently “work” on a real site. If a web designer forgets about the peculiarities of the code, and gives himself up to a flight of imagination, which will become a nightmare for a layout designer, then this does not end well.

On the other hand, making a layout that would avoid unnecessary suffering during its further integration is an excellent opportunity for a performer to demonstrate his professional skills.

In general, a minimalist design style is much easier to implement due to its simplicity and structure.

6. Better download speed and cross-browser compatibility

When a visitor goes to a minimalistic site, often, he can count on its excellent performance in any browser. In addition, due to the lack of many images and details, your site will load much faster and your content will be easier to read. This point is very important both for the overall impression of a web project and for SEO.

belancio.com

7. Helps you focus on content

Despite the active development of the media format, text content is still out of competition. The minimalistic design serves it up perfectly and allows the visitor to focus solely on the content. However, we must not forget that the content of the site must be clear and concise.

Summing up

As you can see, simplicity and minimalism in design have many advantages, thanks to which they remain popular regardless of the era and scope of application. Therefore, when creating your next project, we recommend that you pay special attention to this style. Even if you don t want to use it in its purest form, but simply borrow some principles, it will help you create really high-quality layouts.