Minimalist Design – Is this for you?
Have you ever heard the phrase – “less is more”?
As a creative designer, there are usually two paths that you can take for your art.
One is the artistic awe-inspiring works that challenge human creativity. The ones that are riddled with little touches of beauty that make you go “wow” because of the attention to detail.
The other is choosing a more simpler path. Trying to use the fewest elements as possible to create maximum effect. Maybe it is not simple after all, but about the deletion of all the unnecessary elements. Art created this way although so crisp and concise on the surface just as much as hard work as the earlier type to perfect. This is minimalism and it the most preferred design style right now.
Why minimalism?
Minimalistically designed artworks can have profound messages that are to the point. There is a reason for the success of minimalism. The major one is how just a glance, just a tiny look at such work, and you know why it’s there for. There is no beating around the bush or awkward moments of self-reflection trying to figure out what is this all about. You know what it is and so does everyone else. From the choices of color to the font style, its all chosen in such a way that it doesn’t obstruct the message. The core elements are what is given prime importance. Polished delivery means that it has a better chance of reaching a wider crowd. So there you have it, conversion rates can increase too!
Pioneers
The best example of a minimalist website is the Google homepage.
The entire page is constructed in such a way that the focus is driven to the text box. You might think that the white space all around is a waste and they could do better by added additional design elements. This is where the professionals stand out against the crowd of amateurs. No professional web designer would suggest that. This is because, the nothing – the void – the white space is just as important as everything else on the page. It is content too. It is the reason why your eyes go straight to the text box and not anywhere else when you open the website.
The next finest example of minimalist web design is Apple.com
You can notice how Apple, just like Google uses a whole lot of white space to maintain an elegant tone. Apple is a business run by its products. Their phones, laptops, and desktops are its primary source of revenue. Adopting such a minimalistic approach to their web design means that the entire focus of the visitors is now on the products. There are no distractions on the site. No popups or other such design elements that stray the visitors’ eye away from their main selling point.
Advantages of the Minimalist Approach
Less Maintenance
Some brands go overboard and try too much. I’m sure you must have come across such websites yourself. Its okay to have ambitions, they there is such a thing as overshooting. Now, this won’t be a problem initially. But as time passes and you need to come up with daily updates for the website and in the end, you will be tired of just trying to play catch up with you ever-expanding website. Let me state the obvious and tell you, that is not a good way to conduct business.
One of the biggest advantages of having a minimalist website is the low maintenance. A clean, clear and crisp website that can function of its own is the best. The lack of unnecessary extra elements makes things so much easier on the host’s sides.
Faster Loading Times
Did you know that 40% of your audience will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load?
Minimalist websites have the luxury of not having to worry about this huge factor. Your very choice of going with the least amount of elements means that automatically you get a website that loads faster. By including a lot of white space and “freeing” the page of unnecessarily clogging buttons and images – keeps thing lightning fast. A little parallax effect and maybe a little bit of HTML 5 animations is all it takes to perfect your page. Remember those days where some pages had all those adobe flash animations that took forever to load? Now that was the exact opposite of minimalism. By our very choice of art style, we have fixed a huge problem – website optimization that so many developers struggle with.
Focus
Bidding adieu to all those nasty sidebars and flashy buttons everywhere you have made a stand. A stand that will echo through the chambers of design history. You have taken the warriors path of sticking to simplicity and driven the entire focus of your page to one place – where it matters – your content. Sacrificing those annoying pop-ups can raise eyebrows from the marketing team. But if you want to make a minimalist website, these are the rites of the ritual. Pop-ups can be distracting, frustrating and can even irritate the user to the verge of actually quitting the page. This is why you need to know what your strong point is on the website. Now use white space all around (kind of like google) to drive focus to that point.
Something as small as just a strong inspiring word – placed perfectly, can add to the beauty of your website.
Conclusion
Now that you have learned the basics of minimalist web design, you can make the decision on whether this is something for you or not. After making a choice, a digital media specialist like Adhuntt can guide you on the perfect path to kick-start your brand’s new and amazing website. Go and get your brand the minimalism it needs! Ciao!
