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Best Minimalistic Website Design Tips and Techniques

When someone says “less is more,” they are pointing towards the concept of minimalism. Minimalistic website design ideas are more than a design feature. It’s a way of thinking and an approach towards creating design elements or communication interfaces that emphasize on keeping the creatives restrained and nominal. 

Minimalism is attractive and compelling and is being approved by most of the designing professionals and users these days. 

Why is it so effective? Look at it this way: If you want to go to the summit of a mountain, you need to be as lightweight as possible. With only you and your essential equipment, you’ll have plenty of room and a great view of the world at the very top. Minimalism lets you get the most out of your trip by using the fewest resources possible.

That is the essence of minimalism.

Similarly, in the context of web designing, minimalism is all about providing seamless user engagements without the addition of unnecessary design components. With a focus on simplicity, you may create a website that appears polished and well-thought-out, as well as one that can accomplish more with less. Lower levels of distraction lead to higher levels of attention, involvement, and eventual conversions.

When it comes to your website, you don’t have to limit yourself to just one facet of minimalism. It’s all about making the most of what you’ve got. This blog discusses all aspects of minimalistic website designing employed by web design professionals and will guide you to implement one.

Best Practices for Minimalistic Website Design

1. Utilize the whitespace

There will be some free space left after removing some unwanted objects. The white space is often referred to as the negative space by web design professionals. Besides that, it serves as the foundation for all minimalist designs. It’s not required that it’s white, but it is without a doubt empty. Even when it’s empty, it still has an impact on how buyers see your brand.

First and foremost, it eliminates annoyances and interruptions. Second, it draws attention to itself and makes it easier for users to get to the content they need without having to contend with distracting aspects. Whitespace has been linked to a number of advantages, including the ones listed below.

  • It improves the user’s experience and directs their attention to the website’s content and your offering.
  • It provides a sense of equilibrium.
  • A web design company may use it to entice visitors to stay on your website longer by paying attention to the information that appears in the white space between your site’s primary content sections. 

One of the best ways to get a minimalist look is to use a lot of whitespaces.

2. Use of vivid colors

Even though bright colors might be exciting to look at, implementing them into a minimalist design can be difficult. Colorful backdrops grab the user’s attention and hold it for a long time. However, if the background is very colorful, it might go from being intriguing to being bothersome.

The usage of vivid colors should be paired with more subdued, relaxing hues. Include some typography in either black or white. If you follow these steps, you’ll end up with a stunning, eye-catching final result. Furthermore, inform the web design company you employed to avoid elaborate animations, strange typefaces, and abrupt transitions between content sections.

3. Experiment with typefaces

Beautiful, strong typefaces are a key design trend right now followed by many professional web design services. Your imagination is the only limit. Your user’s attention will be drawn to your content if the typeface is clear and easy to read.

To compensate for the restricted use of animations and pictures on your site, an effective typographic strategy may be used to make it aesthetically appealing. Using typefaces to establish hierarchy will help your site’s users better understand what information is most essential and how to get around your pages.

On smartphones, typefaces are projected in a way that affects the overall usefulness of your product. Using the “Sans Serif” font type for a minimalist website is one of the greatest options since it is crisp and clean to look at.

It’s important to keep the font size simple when there aren’t many things on the page. Using tiny fonts may be an excellent method to convey information without consuming a lot of space. However, you must take precautions because small writing can quickly go lost on a web page, creating an impression of clumsiness and distraction.

4. Flat textures

There are no gradients, shadows, highlights, or other graphic elements in these textures. Everything about the user interface in this scenario appears to be kept to a bare minimum and to the point. It’s important to keep in mind that a flat design isn’t the only way to get a minimalist personal website. Different types of flat and minimalist designs may be found. It’s not uncommon for them to co-occur, but be aware of the distinction.

Although it may include a stunning 3D animation in the middle, a simple website might still be considered minimalist. For the time being, some designers may find it simpler to minimize using flat structures. It is important to bear in mind the overall look and feel of your brand when selecting from various web design ideas.

5. Customize navigation

In order to achieve a minimalist aesthetic, it is essential to get rid of whatever you consider unnecessary. Some web designers, on the other hand, may take things a step further by eliminating the majority of the website’s navigational elements. Make sure that you don’t obscure navigational links that are critical to your users.

It’s best to leave the “menu” button intact while integrating the rest of the navigational buttons into the “menu.” The “homepage” button can be hidden within the logo of your firm. Moreover, you should highlight the buttons in such a way that your visitors understand they are clickable.

6. Grid layouts

Digital designers that want a minimalist aesthetic use grid layouts in particular. An additional benefit of this design is that it makes the page appear lighter. Even with a steady stream of fresh content, there is never a feeling of being overloaded.

You may also use grids to build a responsive version of your website, which normally requires an image that is drastically different from the desktop version.

7. Images should be carefully chosen

People’s emotions are greatly influenced by visually appealing graphics. That’s why an entire business has been devoted to designing.

Use high-definition images that are vivid and eye-catching to elicit a strong emotional response from your visitors. While photographs can be used as ornamentation, remember that they should also demonstrate the business or product you are delivering.

Bottom Line

For your minimalistic website design to be a success, you’ll need a clear vision, an inquisitive mind, and the willingness to go from cluttered to no-cluttered. But the payoff is worth it. Minimalism reduces your brand to its most basic elements, making it easier for potential consumers to meet and interact with you.

Contact Us today to get your website audited for UI and UX

Read About How To Use Colors In your Websites here.

Categories
Brand & Identity Design UI Design

When To And When Not To Use Dark Themes?

The dark theme or the dark mode design has been trending from quite some time now. It became seemingly famous across the world of the internet when Google adopted it for Google drive. It did receive an excellent response from all nooks and corners of the world; however, that doesn’t mean that every business or website can pull off a dark theme. What are the factors that need to be considered before deciding on using dark themes? When should you use dark themes? When should you avoid a dark theme? Let’s check it out.

The Dark Themes Can Be Used When You Want To:

  • Emphasize visual content
  • Enhance emotional branding
  • Go minimalistic
  • Match your brand colors
  • Improve usability

Emphasize Visual Content

A dark theme is perfect for making visual applications and websites stand out. The deep, substantial backgrounds provide the much needed high-contrast backdrop for images, graphics, videos, and visuals of any shape and color. It elevates the visual hierarchy as the lighter visual content stands out against the dark background; Especially if you’re using large, high-contrast images. If images are playing the lead role in your application, or website, and a copy is a sidekick, consider a dark color palette.

Enhance Emotional Branding

A dark theme needs much more blank space to avoid looking chaotic and cluttered. Thus, dark applications and websites tend to elicit stronger emotions than light ones. Color psychology also impacts the emotional appeal. Generally, we associate dark colors, primarily black, with mystery, power, elegance, and drama. Therefore, when a dark background is paired with some high-contrast, big images, the finished output looks stunning.

This mood-setting strategy works beautifully and frequently appears on product pages and entertainment applications. Apple’s iOS 13 page uses a dark color scheme to make their product seem more sophisticated and elegant. Similarly, the Halo App’s dark theme makes it look more dramatic. However, a lightly-colored website or app can be just as impactful. Choosing the right color scheme depends entirely upon what emotions you want your brand to evoke.

Go Minimalistic With Dark Themes

In case you already use a minimalist design that has limited content, your conditions are suitable for dark mode. In a situation where the text is the primary content, dark UI can make legibility an issue. Typically, dark mode amplifies visual clutter making a cluttered screen even more chaotic.

Match Your Brand Colors

When a brand’s existing color palette is already dark mode compatible, the dark mode is the way to go forward. Think twice about going dark if it seems like you have to change the brand to fit the aesthetic. Similarly, if your brand needs to use a wide spectrum of colors, consider a lighter UI. The full-color spectrum doesn’t read pleasantly on dark backgrounds.

Improve Usability

Sometimes, your app has to be dark to be user-friendly. For instance, apps designed for heavy nighttime use will employ a dark color scheme to avoid straining the user’s eyes. The trend is especially noticeable in entertainment apps like Netflix and Prime Video, but other applications offer a dark mode, too. Twitter lets users toggle between light and dark in the settings, and Google Maps automatically darkens at night.

However, the time of day isn’t the only usability factor to consider. If your application is intended to be used for hours without rest, a dark theme may minimize eye strain. That’s why dark themes are popular in code editors and financial apps.

You must avoid dark themes when your website or app has:

  • Lots of text
  • Lots of elements
  • Bright colors

Lots of Text

One of the most significant drawbacks of a dark color scheme is that it is terrible for displaying text. Light text on a dark background is hard to read. Dark themes are not suitable for interfaces with lots of copy. Not only do people have to spend more time reading the text, but the comprehending ratio also dips. On the other hand, dark text on a white background looks crisp, clean, and refined. The copy is easy to read and extremely legible. Browse across all major news and blogging websites, and you will find that they all have light backgrounds instead of dark ones. Your website should not have a dark theme if it contains lots of written content.

Lots of Elements

Finally, a dark theme can be a poor choice for apps and websites with lots of icons, buttons, and small images. That’s because of the dark background de-accentuate empty space. While de-emphasized empty space makes large images and minimalist pages elegant and dramatic, it makes small icons and dense pages look cluttered, unorganized, and unprofessional. Admin backend panels are a great example. The difference is even more obvious when you compare a light panel with a dark one. 

On dashboards, the dark theme does not look bad, but it does look denser. In some instances, that’s not a problem. However, the clutter problems don’t end here, because, with a dark color scheme, it’s hard to make each element stand out. Since a dark color scheme limits your color selection, it’s harder for a designer to maintain good contrast. This does not pose a problem if a page has a few key elements, but if a page contains several buttons, icons, menus, and banners, the overall design will look much less cluttered on a light background.

Bright Colors in Dark Themes

Dark themes also limit your color options. Too many bright colors can clash against the dark background and give your entire website a harsh and unfriendly appearance. While the occasional splash of color can add brilliant emphasis, most of your elements should be muted neutral colors.

Read more about how to use colors in web design here

There are a lot of advantages to using a dark theme:

  • It reduces the strain on eyes
  • It increases visibility in low-ambient lighting
  • Saves a lot of battery life
  • Gives an emotional boost 

But, you need to understand that one size doesn’t fit all, and hence the pointers mentioned above will help you in deciding if you must use a dark theme or not. Still, confused? Talk to our experts now!