A Showcase of Effective Minimalism in Web Design
Minimalism in web design is all about stripping things down to only the necessities – so there is nothing in the way of the content. You’ll find that minimal designs have a focus on typography, simple layouts, and a lack of fancy design elements. So what makes an effective minimal web design? Effective minimalism happens when a design gets out of the way of the content and still remains visually stunning. Here is a showcase of websites that are able to achieve this.
A Way Back
Corking Design
Maxvoltar
iA
Jack Cheng
A Working Library
Jaredigital
Creative Suitcase
Open
Snook.ca
LegiStyles
The Swish Life
Second and Park
Typejockeys
Great Works
The Creative District
BKWLD
Heartworker
We Are Hunted
Buckenmeyer & Co.
Related Posts
Here's some other articles that you will definitely find useful.
45 Inspiring Design Agency Websites
55 Excellent Examples of Websites Using HTML5
30 Inspiring iPhone Application Websites
35 Purple Web Designs to Inspire You
25 Nature Related Web Designs to Inspire You
Nov 27, 2009
The Buckenmeyer & Co.’s website took my breath. Excellent typography and whitespace.
Nov 27, 2009
Great post! I love Minimalist! Give my site a look see what you think
Nov 27, 2009
Minimalist? Try this for size: http://www.danpetter.net/
Nov 27, 2009
Great post, just goes to show that a well thought out grid and carefully considered typography goes a long way.
Nov 27, 2009
Nice showcase, but it would be great if you can explain how each minimalism design is effective.
Nov 27, 2009
A nice selection I have just jumped on the minimal bandwagon! Fantastic for personal sites since they require little work and maintenance! Shame I’m never included on these lists though
Nov 27, 2009
hm. i`m not so sure. all these websites of minimal website collections i visit don`t look really minimal to me…
what do you think?
Nov 27, 2009
Nice list, always love to look at others’ minimalistic designs. I’m always surprised to see how so little can go such a long way.
Recently jumped on the minimalistic bandwagon myself. I like to think the design works, but I made it, so of course I’d think that.
Nov 27, 2009
Thanks for posting, this is a nice list. Although I would say most of these are very well known sites that lots of people have seen. I do think Auxiliary Design’s site is a really nice minimal site.
Nov 27, 2009
ummm…these are minimalist…they’re just all white with nav at the top.
if anything this collection should be called Grid-based sites 101. very few of these are minimalist “by choice” but rather by structure.
this is a bad list of B- websites.
Nov 28, 2009
These are hardly B- websites. “A Working Library” for example I think is great.
I think when you say these are bad sites, you really are saying “Minimalist websites aren’t my cup of tea.”
But as far as the category goes, these are great examples to look at.
Nov 27, 2009
these aren’t minimalist….is what i meant to say.
Nov 27, 2009
Awesome showcase! Thanks
Nov 28, 2009
http://www.minimalsites.com .. you are welcome
Nov 28, 2009
This is probably one of the best recent compilations of minimalist design I’ve seen and it’s great! I actually modeled our company’s current website (http://www.forgeseo.com) off a variety of minimalist styles and we’ve gotten a lot of compliments on how navigating the site is extremely easy.
There are a lot of sites that are overdoing the web 2.0 style and it ends up killing usability and readability – minimalism is an optional alternative to this.
Nov 28, 2009
Useful list, thanks for sharing. Here is another minimal, clean site: http://www.studiowber.com
Nov 28, 2009
Tumblr has some great minimalist themes available. One of my favorite Tumblr designers is this guy:
http://rinich.com/
Nov 28, 2009
I wanna lick the ‘A way back’ website. Seems tasty.
Nov 28, 2009
Websites are particularly conducive for minimalism. You found a nice collection.
Nov 28, 2009
Actually I don’t think those all can be called minimalistic…
Nov 28, 2009
Always the same ones…..
Nov 29, 2009
I like the “Corking Design” example you used. I traditionally think of minimalist designs as lighter designs, but this is a good example of a minimalist design that’s darker with a bit of grunginess. Automattic’s website is another example of a minimalist design: http://automattic.com/.
Nov 29, 2009
Minimalism in web design is the new “IT” if you ask me. It’s grown rather popular to build Minimalistic way.
Nov 29, 2009
Very good inspiration…
Nov 30, 2009
simple, cool, smooth, but still kickass
nice collection bru
Dec 3, 2009
Great roundup, some really nice work