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Minimalism design inspiration: part I

With this sequence of articles we are going to present a long list of websites characterized by their minimalist web design style. According to Wikipedia’s definition, we can say that the main feature of this style is to reduce the subject to its very basics, removing any element that could somehow distract attention from the message that you want to convey.

Less is more, that’s the idea: few elements and more clarity in order to facilitate the message fruition.
Which are the features that characterize a website designed in accordance with the principles of the minimal style though?
Tautly, we can summarize them in four points:

• Simplicity, i.e. absence of elements that, from the communication point of view, are useless or redundant. The content takes the main role and whatever is superfluous or redundant is removed.
• Use of the fonts to guide the user’s fruition: margins, alignment and visual hierarchy are used to structure the message. Fonts and text gain visual interest and help the user to easily identify the important parts of content.
• Use of the white space, that allows to distinguish the different elements and to focus the user’s attention on specific areas of the page. This works still better when you add others design principles, like proportion and emphasis, in order to define clear and easily noticeable visual paths.
• Essential use of graphic. It’s a mistake to consider minimal only those websites with no graphic or in black & white. The important is that the graphic elements don’t divert the attention from the main message, but help the user to browse the site content instead.

A good combination of these elements brings clear and easily perceptible advantages, like a prompt identification of the significant parts of the page (i.e. a better usability and a more effective communication), beside a modern and clean visual appeal of sure impact.

As it emerges from the gallery we present, the minimal style is suitable for every kind of website: from blogs to portfolios, from informative to advertising websites, as it aims to give importance to the core of communication, i.e. the content.

Other articles about the minimal style will follow, in whose we will be presenting different applications of the principles mentioned above.
We would be glad, anyhow, if you could recommend us some resources that you consider are worthy to be mentioned. Thanks in advance.

(Translated by Ori)

1. 5thirtyone
   
2. Agenturblog
   
3. Aigany
   
4. Alltop
   
5. Andy Rutledge
   
6. Astheria
   
7. Authentic Style
   
8. Ben Hulse
   
9. Carbon Silk
   
10. Cherry Bloom
    
11. Dache
    
12. Daniel Scrivner
    
13. Daninko
    
14. Darrenalawi
    
15. Derek Punsalan
    
16. Designed by Anderson
    
17. Designing the news
    
18. Design TokyoCube
    
19. Dotkraft
    
20. EightFace
    

Posted by Roberto on 21 May, 2008
Category: Design, News