Minimalism is a design trend that has been popular for several years now. It is a design style that focuses almost entirely on content. That means features, colours, textures, and elements are either stripped to the bare minimum or removed entirely. It is a philosophy that embraces empty spaces and survives on the maxim that less is more.
1. Frieze
This example has a full-width black and white design and comes from the media and events company, Frieze. It has attractive fonts and an uncluttered layout showcasing content over design.
2. Sonikpass
This is a website for the German company Sonikpass. The design uses minimal features and colors but does so in a way that is contrasting and subtly striking.
3. Quiver
Quiver is a file sharing and collaboration application. The design uses color, but the navigation is uncomplicated, the information is succinct, and there are dominant call-to-action sections.
4. Rikcat
This is the professional website of a designer, artist, and illustrator. It manages to effectively convey its message and give contact details and social media links on one page with one image and less than 50 words.
5. New Lab
This website is for New Lab, an engineering and design company in the USA. The website design features big, easily readable text using a clear black font on a white background. The navigation is simple, and the site looks equally good on mobile or desktop.
This website for the designer and animator Jan-Hendrik Behne features a lot of wide space. The focus is on the content, with black text on a white background and animated illustrations.
The Morning News is an online magazine where the focus is on the stories that they produce. The presentation of those stories is kept simple, with an uncluttered design, strategic use of images, and text that's easy to read.
8. Oxford House
Oxford House is a creative agency for film and production. Their website manages to use large, high-quality videos but still achieve a design that is minimalist. This is done through using succinct text, simple navigation, and straightforward fonts.
9. Paddock
Paddock is a cafe and catering company. The website displays a large, unique image and a memorable logo while also giving opening times, location, contact information, and social media links, all above the fold. There are also simple links to get more detailed information.
10. Maqina
Maqina is a creative agency based in the UK. Their website uses a simple design with a black and white color scheme that manages to display the company's creativity.
11. Onirim
This example is from the creative agency Onirim. It uses a simple black-on-white color scheme with effective use of videos and images to showcase the portfolio.
Wonderland's Store shows that online shops can effectively use minimalist designs too. The navigation is simple with straightforward options to choose from. The background is white with black text.
13. Chama Inc
Chama Inc is a business consultancy. Their website features a simple design with an emphasis on typography. The typography lifts the words from the pages and focuses the viewer on content even more.
14. Trefecta
Trefecta manufactures and supplies electronic bikes. Unlike other brand pages, it has kept the design of its website simple. There are a lot of high-quality images, but that's the point—it focuses on bike designs, not the design of the website.
15. Mark Wieman
Mark Wieman is a design consultant. The website promoting his business takes a minimalist style. It is a single-page website with everything displayed on white and grey backgrounds. All the text is black or grey, and there is no colour, links, photos, or anything else distracting on the page.
16. Gitman Bros
Gitman Bros supplies shirts, ties, and trousers. Its website has an online shop, and everything is done with a minimalist style and gold accents.
17. Senyil
This example is a website from the designer Muharrem Senyil. It is a simple design with clear navigation and large, black text on a white background.
18. Cameron
This website is owned by the developer and designer Cameron Kenley Hunt. It uses a simple font on a grey background with red accents. The minimalist style is reminiscent of the popular cultural blog, This Isn't Happiness.
19. The Nero
The Nero is a website for the digital art director and visual designer Marco Grimaldi. It is a website with a black background and white and grey text.
20. Fox and Flourish
Fox and Flourish is a company that provides calligraphy and creative services. Its website has a simple design with attractive photography, a white background, and generous amounts of white space.
This example from the creative agency Concentric Studio features a lot of white space.
22. 62 Models
62 Models is a modeling agency in New Zealand. The website has a simple design with black text and a good user experience that gets straight to the point.
23. StudioMH
This website is for the design and illustration studio StudioMH. It is a minimalist design with just three words, a background image, and simple navigation on the homepage.
24. Putput
Putput is a website for two Danish artists. The website design elements are minimalist so the focus centres on the images of art. The soft colour palette on the website enhances this.
25. Output Group
The Output Group is a design agency. Their website features content using a number of different formats including text, image, and video. The minimalist design enhances the content without getting in the way.
This is a portfolio website for the New Zealand photographer Robert Jackson-Mee. It uses a minimalist style to showcase his work.
27. Vangeltzo
This is a simple website and blog for a developer that provides the viewer with comprehensive information in a short and sharp style.
28. The Deck
The Deck is an ad network. The style of its website design is almost entirely focused on typography, with clear text in varying font sizes and subtle green accents.
29. Chapter 3
Chapter 3 is a clothing brand that caters to the sport of cycling. The website has a minimalist style with a focus on images. It is stylish, and there is no clutter.
30. ALLT
ALLT is a design studio and online shop. The website is uncluttered and has crisp, large and easy to read typography.
31. Vesess
The design agency Vesess has an elegant website with generous amounts of white space and a dark grey color scheme with occasional red accents.
Most corporate websites go overboard with information, much of which might be important to executives and shareholders but is not necessarily important to website visitors. The website for Endeavour Capital manages to avoid this with a clean and uncluttered design. They are a private equity and advisory company.
33. Inputs
The blog Inputs is about technology and design. The website is all about content, though, so no design features get in the way or distract the reader.
This website is a portfolio website for the architects Sergey Makhno. There are a lot of content elements including large images, video and audio, but the overall design is minimalistic and functional.
35. Hello Trio
Hello Trio is a creative studio. Their website is stylish and cool but has a simple navigational structure and content that gets to the point.
This website is for the developer Sylvain Reucherand and uses a simple, no-nonsense design focused on typography.
37. Pitchfork
Pitchfork is a music blog from publishers Conde Nast. It is packed full of content and has a grid layout. The style is still undoubtedly minimalistic, primarily because of the simple colour scheme and uncomplicated typography.
38. UAC Studios
UAC Studios is a website and digital design agency. Their website features generous white space with black and grey typography.
39. Silverleaf
Silverleaf produces handcrafted bookmarks. It is a boutique brand so the website has to tell a story. It does this very well due to the minimalist design. In other words, the focus is on the craftsmanship and the story of the brand, with the design being almost incidental.
40. Karim Rashid
Karim Rashid is a designer. The website that showcases his work displays it with big images and big, bold typography, but the site is designed in a minimalist style. This enhances the focus on the pieces instead of detracting from them.
The emphasis on minimalist website design is pushed by a number of big tech companies as well as top design studios. It is all about putting user experience above everything else, including programmer egos and designers wanting to appear on-trend. Because of this focus on user experience, it is likely to be a style that will remain a feature of good website designs for many years—and decades—to come.
