There are many new web design methods or techniques out there in the world today. Many designers choose a method, style, or technique and stick to it to master it and put their name on it.
However, others try to hop from trend to trend to keep up with the industries needs, which is indeed, a great idea for freelance designers. Minimalist design is becoming ever popular in the web design industry, and because of such, we discuss several key points that favor that designers should adapt to minimalistic design in order to keep up with the trending or evolving industry.
What is Minimalist Design?
Minimalist design is a new design style or technique that is based on the usage of web technologies and content. The minimalistic designing process involves less use of web technologies such as JavaScript and less use of images, icons, and the likes including the way the elements fit onto the grid or layout.
The point to it is to keep the design as simple yet as elegant as possible. For example, minimalistic design can include a great lightweight illustration that blends in with extensive whitespace with little use of JavaScript. Add a nice mixture of colors and well laid out content across the grid, and you come up with a great minimalistic design.
To grasp the idea of minimalistic design, have a look at the two sites below:
Dbushell
Dbushell is a great example of the use of web technologies in minimalistic design. It has a nice lightweight header with a great illustration right below while utilizing the hierarchy method for the content and typography.
Ah-Studio
Ah Studio has an interesting touch with the way it utilizes minimalist design. While there may be a lot of scrolling to do to get through the content, it handles the illustrations and navigation quite well throughout. It is a great example to show you that minimalist design really has no borders to how lightweight it can actually be.
Now that you have a general idea of what minimalist design is all about, you can quite see that why many companies in a plethora of industries quite desire minimalistic designs for their websites, as they are lightweight but carry a lot of character to them.
The Wow Factor
Minimalist Design provides that wow factor to-many companies as these minimalistic designs are not only lightweight and simple to work with, but they often contain hidden treats waiting to be found. For example, many minimalistic designs out there in the world today scatter the usage of JavaScript, enough to satisfy our cravings but not too much to qualify as heavy use.
With that said, we are often found searching about these websites only to find some great JavaScript use in some features we never imagined to find. This not only increases the wow factor for viewers and clientele alike, but it also keeps them searching or hunting for more of these hidden treats to see what you have for them next.
Heavy Use of Creativity and Ingenuity
Due to minimalist design being so lightweight, it limits how much color, gradients, icons, and the likes you can use throughout the design or layout. However, because of this, it requires a lot of creativity and ingenuity that you would not otherwise put forward when designing fully-fledged websites.
This extra ingenuity or creativity that it requires allows you to expand on its borders or boundaries having you come up with new elements and factors to minimalist design, one of the delicious key features when using this style or method. Think of it as this, if I give you two blocks and two tools including a carving tool and tell you to build scale-sized cave like home, you really do not have all the materials or tools to do it.
However, because I only gave you these tools and materials, you have to use your imagination to become very creative to how you can use the tools with the materials to build the end result, and in the end, the output will generally be better than what you would have done if I gave you all the necessary tools, as you needed to be more creative on how you can reach or obtain the goal.
Many Companies Want It
As freelance designers, we find many small to large companies in search for designers to help redesign their websites. However, when we accept their job, we learn that their entire website is built upon only a few pages. Instead of heading the minimalist or minimalistic route, we decide to build a full-fledged site around these few pages.
Often, our designs are a definite overkill to what these companies offer online and these companies are generally pleased with the end result but not quite as great as they may have imagined their website to look. Therefore, when it comes down to a few pages, the best satisfying route would be to create minimalist or minimalistic designs as they are not only universal, but they are also great pieces that express the content well with great hidden treats between. Leaving these companies more than satisfied and pleased, of who will most definitely return to you for future design work.
To conclude, the minimalistic designing method or style is a great style to adapt to as its demand is constantly increasing as more and more companies and individuals find the need for them. Companies and small business often want websites but have no need for no more than a few pages on that website. Many designs and designers tend to stick to designing for content filled websites despite these sites only having a few pages.
Therefore, the end result is generally not as great is it should be. Moreover, by adapting to minimalistic design, you can maximize on your growth in the industry as well as always “over satisfying” your clientele by reaching or exceeding what they would have imagined their website to look like or be.