The Official Blueprint To Minimalist Web Design | Simplemachine

Who needs a cluttered website anymore? Well, not so long ago, cluttered websites were the norm, if not the trend. But you can’t fault people! They were experimenting. They were creating websites where customer experience or navigation wasn’t a top priority. The trend then was providing a lot of information about your business so that people could understand you. However, minimalist web design has gained traction in recent years. They have a modern look with simple navigation, cleaner pages, active side chats, and more. They make it easier for you to design your site so that it leads to better user experience.

1. ‘Less is more’ concept

Minimalist web design follows the logic that the less, cleaner information you provide, the better. First of all, when designing, you need to establish the message you need to convey and the size of the content required to do that. Then you’ll select colors and fonts that represent your style and message.

• Clear, concise messaging
  Make your message easy to decipher. You don’t want to explain your message using too many words. Users can quickly feel annoyed if they feel like you are overdoing it. Your goal is to convert users to be return visitors.
• Keep it simple
  Do you want your site to work well on mobile devices and multiple browsers? Then don’t fill it with a lot of custom CSS, Javascript, or flash animation. What makes a site appealing is an ability to cross-platform. Hence simplicity is fundamental to minimalist website design.
• Display your brand.
  Your brand name is your ticket to self-promotion. So it’s vital to display it in an aesthetically pleasing manner. But to achieve a minimalist design, you need to avoid splashing your brand name on every page. Cleverly keep your brand name on a prominent page.
• Be unconventional
  Have you embraced minimalist design? Well, leave the bulky widgets and navigation bars behind. Use creative collages of images or simple text on the side to direct your visitors. Use fluid background elements, water visuals, and more to get you away from the conventional way of designing websites.
• Limit distractions
  It’s essential to get rid of pop-ups, which clutter websites. Users loath irrelevant pop-up messages and advertisements. The reason why you should remove them from other types of sites is to limit distractions. You want your users focused on the message.

2. Use navigation bars and menus for better user experience

• Stylish search bars – You need better-styled search bars that enable you to find bits of information quickly. Moreover, you need to have the ability to jump between sections using tools like a simple vertical navigation menu.
• Fantastic site navigation and menu bars – You need better transitions effects to create an engaging page. You need a navigation menu that enables you to jump between sections.  This is extremely helpful for pages that extend a lot vertically.

3. Use white space wisely

It’s prudent to use white space in the website design so that it can stand out. White space in websites tends to reduce visual noise in sites to allow visitors to concentrate on the content. In contrast, white space in paintings is full of mystery and invites people to use their imagination.

4. Use colors cleverly

The use of simple colors has a visually appealing effect on your site. Use colors to divide up the interface functions. Vibrancy is the key to a minimalist design. It keeps users engaged and leads to an increase in your fan base. So feel free to use several colors on the website.

Expressing yourself with 1-3 colors is an excellent way of representing your message. Make sure that colors complement each other and avoid using too many colors.

For example, white and black color on your site is fashionable and appealing. Also, don’t fear using color blocks to divide the interface more intuitively. Moreover, use color contrast to make your website noticeable. You can use color with other components like “Image,” “Shape,” “Text Area,”  “Label,” and more.

5. Use texts, fonts, and typography

Use Google fonts to simplify user interface texts, sentences, and forms, which makes your site more intuitive and user-friendly. Google fonts are open source and are in 135 languages with unique topography. Using these unique fonts will bring out your brand’s personality. Besides, they will also improve your site performance and load time.

6. Explain page texts with photos and video

They say a picture is worth a thousand words while a video is worth more than a million.

• Photos
  In line with less is more, using a picture instead of text is an excellent way of explaining complicated issues with photos or images. This follows the basic principles of minimalist web design.
• Video
  For example, a hotel website with a video background of a beach, hotel room, or a swimming pool and a simple navigation menu will do more to communicate to customers. Potential customers looking through the website will feel like they are already on the beach. The excellent use of white space will keep the design uncluttered and clean.Besides, video is good at storytelling. You have 10 seconds to grab the attention of your site visitor. Hence, a video is the best at telling the story engagingly and emotionally.

7. Use of intuitive grids to simplify the website

Use grids instinctively to guide users and divide the interface to find their required pages quickly. This simplifies the site, making it user-friendly and responsive.

• Use elegant transition effects – Small animations include those that imitate the flipping of a book, which are excellent additions to minimalist designs. The goal of these animations is to add character to websites instead of a lot of content.

8. Improve your site with design styles or techniques

To make your site attractive and unique, optimize your website design with requisite skills and design styles.

• Use your creativity – Since you know what you want to express, using your creativity will bring out the uniqueness of your site and communicate more effectively with users. So pay attention to detail and implement your skills.
• Flat design styles – This is the most sought-after design style in the market. It’s clean, simple, and visually appealing.
• Progressive disclosure techniques – This is a technique used to simplify the UI of mobile sites and apps. Using this technique to create websites or apps, users can easily click a link or a button to shift to other parts of the site.
• Choosing themes based on features of your products – Use colors, photos, and icons to depict a consistent website design theme.

Bottom Line

Minimalist web design is all about simplicity and using unconventional creativity to bring out and send out powerful messages. Thus it’s a design strategy effective for creating impressive websites and attracting and creating a fan base. Contact us at Simplemachine and learn more about how to implement a minimalist design in your site.