We’ve all heard the phrase, “less is more” when it comes to various aspects of our lives. But what about when it comes to web design? Minimalist website designs are becoming more popular and for many reasons. Here’s how to use minimalism on your website and why it’s beneficial.
What is Minimalist Design?
Minimalist website designs have simple frameworks that utilize color and typography for emphasis. Often, designers extremely pare down their color palettes, using one to two hues and typefaces.
These websites use very few elements, such as forms, buttons, and videos throughout the entire site architecture. They typically employ a good deal of white space. Because of this, the colors, typography, and other features being used need to be approached with extreme care.
How to Approach Minimalism Design
Minimalist web designs are focused. You need to plan with purpose when considering a minimalist design because every element that will be featured needs to have an impact and guide your website visitors to take action. Think about it: You’re presenting the essentials – reducing the information you want to offer about your company to its absolute core. Consider the following elements when thinking about how you’ll present your information: contrast, space, organization, color, typography, dominant visual.
For example, most minimalist designs utilize a grid to create the structure and organize their website. Black and white schemes are popular high-level contrasts that highlight opposing forces on a website – like a large image next to small text, or vice versa. When it comes to typography, the most common frameworks are built with sans serif fonts because they’re simple with clean lines.
Many minimalist designs also use white space purposefully to create a “Zen” feeling. With less on the page, your visitors can breathe and won’t be distracted by clutter. This tactic also highlights the elements on the website not designed in white. Minimalism also calls for a streamlined palette – generally no more than four colors – that revolve around either a light or dark hue. Utilizing this technique also helps prevent designs with too many visuals — a dominant visual on a minimalist site links directly to other contrast techniques. However, dominant doesn’t automatically mean large.
Benefits
Trying to trim down your website may seem like an undertaking not worth the challenge – but minimalist website designs offer a variety of benefits, including:
Reducing your content. When you use minimalist design, your entire website revolves around your content. When creating a minimalist design, your team must purge any old or inactive content – everything from blogs, case studies, press releases, copy, and videos. Going through this process shows what content you have is engaging. You can use only the best and create more actionable and engaging elements that will power your website.
Works well in responsive environments. With fewer elements on your site, your design will look stunning on everything from a phone, tablet, or desktop computer.
Loads quickly on all devices. Everyone wants a website that loads fast. A slow site has a negative impact on your business’s bottom line. With minimalism, your website loads quickly and keeps your visitors engaged. It will also load more consistency on all devices.
Easy maintenance. The more you pack on to your website, the more issues you may face – and more items your development team may need to fix.
Easier navigation. When your design is simple, with focused elements, your navigation will automatically be more straightforward, too. Visitors will be able to almost naturally know where to go on your site because you’ve eliminated the clutter.
Your server will not be overloaded. With fewer videos, flash, or other complex elements on your website, your server is less likely to overload or any other issue.
-Less makes you look bigger. According to Psychology Today, having less actually makes it seem like you have more. With a well-designed minimalist website that only showcases content of the highest quality, everything seems more prominent, and more critical. This will also make your website visitors feel your company is larger – even if you’re a team of 15.
Minimalism and its design don’t seem to be going anywhere. If you’re looking to re-design your website this year, consider minimalism as it has many benefits. If you approach it the correct way – keeping in mind that what is featured on your site needs to be impactful – you should have great success. If you need help with your website project, contact LyntonWeb today.
