3 Quick rules to help you deal with minimalist websites

Today @ Mantra Big Kiwi This translation is particularly good, for no experience, want to learn from other people's designers, if there is no strong inductive ability, read the minimalism also in vain. Just this article to the minimalist essential/discard elements, the skills that can be used, how to combine with other styles of these key points are very careful, angry horse not to say more!

Today, minimalist design has been widely used in web design, of course, for good reason. Lightweight layouts and low maintenance costs make them flexible and adaptable to responsive design. Natural elegance is very aesthetic, so many brands and institutions are favored and adopted. However, appreciating this design style and creating it is not the same thing.

It seems that because of minimalism, copying a style seems to be changing and easy. The opposite is true, however, because designers have very few elements to use, and creating a minimalist design designer often takes more thought and effort.

This article will explain how to make the best use of minimalist design, and we can quickly determine if a minimalist design applies to your website design, and then go deep into the practice, as you need follow-up and technical discussions to collaborate.

　　is minimalism right for your site?

Based on the recommendations of the free ebook "Web Design Book of Trends 2015-2016". Minimalist design is not the best choice for every website. While this technology is ideal for simple corporate organisations like the firm's web site and creative resume, it can be tricky for more complex sites.

Let's take a look at some of the common websites that apply minimalism to the problems they encounter:

1. Too much content:

For example, ebay or Amazon's Web site requires a detailed interface that supports multiple content classifications, so a minimalist interface is not the best choice. However, these sites still apply some guidelines for minimalist design, such as hiding content when you don't need it.

2. Too many ads:

On the whole, external advertising and minimalism cannot coexist well. Minimalism is accurate and meticulous, and if you are not sure what ads the external Ad server will be inserting into the site, your entire design may be disrupted by trivial elements, such as the color of the advertising picture. Even if advertising is a preset, it can still be an extra element in your design.

3. Web sites for children and young people:

Young viewers may be bored by minimalist design, and they will often prefer more visually stimulating websites, or even some audio.

In contrast to other styles, minimalism has a specific set of stylistic criteria, and you need to think carefully before you decide to use that style.

　　The best practice of minimalism

And look at these valuable minimalist guidelines:

1. Only landing page: for some content-rich sites, very few elements are not beneficial. In this case, the better option is to create a minimalist landing page to this page as a more complex portal.

2. Crisp design Draft: Generally speaking, "omitting unnecessary words" is an excellent writing suggestion, even more suitable for minimalist design. In the design of the manuscript, imagine you are Hemingway writing it ~

3. Pay attention to the top space: According to the user browsing habits, the high-quality content with sufficient negative space layout placed at the top of the page, with the downward scrolling page gradually increase the content density.

4. Keep It interesting: boredom is always a threat to minimalism, so changing your layout to further attract users, alternating along a zigzag layout pattern can help you read.

5. One-page concept: Concise design of the theme, each page/screen around a visual, focus on a concept.

6. Less than or equal to five parts: the content is best not more than five parts, otherwise it will shrink them.

7. Simple into the complex: it is best to start from the black and white frame in the design, and then slowly add elements such as color and so on, the purpose is to help you understand what is necessary, what can be omitted.

If you are a beginner in learning minimalist design, how to choose is a very painful choice. Below we made a list for the novice.

1. Essential elements--logo, navigation options, body content, contact information

2. Can be shed-social media links/icons, footers, widgets (especially the list, such as the hottest click).

On the bright side, as you go deeper into minimalist design, your intuition becomes clearer about what can be omitted. Separating the necessary and redundant content elements is a skill that all design styles require (and not to mention things outside your life or work).

　　Minimalism and other design styles

The beauty of minimalist design is part of the story of how minimalism fits well with other design styles. Minimalism can be regarded as a property, and it can be added or combined with other styles and techniques to avoid weaknesses.

In particular, today's popular mobile devices and reload animations, minimalist design provides a way to ensure quality while reducing maintenance costs. Therefore, minimalist design is often combined with other styles of design.

　　1. Flat Design

Minimalist design and flat design complement each other, because the emphasis is on the characteristics of simplicity. The same is to discard a lot of design skills and focus on the content of the flat design of the basic style in itself, in fact, is very simplified design.

　　2. Hero title and picture

Without talking about glossy flat designs, real photos and large size photos are being used more and more widely. As this vast and compelling image naturally becomes the most attractive focus on the screen, combining them with minimalist design can prevent the distraction of too many users.

　　3. Simple navigation

In other words, you can simplify your navigation to the Hamburg button (three horizontal lines on the left), when you need to display all navigation content, just click or the mouse to slide over.

While this approach is the quickest strategy for achieving pure minimalist design, it is not recommended for all sites-a simplistic navigation that makes it more difficult for users to find navigation, so it is not appropriate for unfamiliar pages to attract users.

　　4. With artistic typesetting

Because of the minimalist design, the text is always an integral part of the composition of the text is therefore important. It has also become one of several ways to create a minimalist website with personality and appeal.

　　Summarize

Minimalist design has many advantages, such as reducing loading time is more suitable for response design, we should study. If your design meets all of the criteria mentioned above, you can try to redesign your site with fewer elements, as if it were just an exercise. You will find that there are many elements that you once felt necessary to be omitted.