Liking the new "minimal design" style?

Within the past few years I've noticed that websites and just everything in general has been taking on the new minimal design style on their pages, products, just about anything. But since this is a web design sub-forum, lets talk about that. Have you been liking this new style of making pages? I've liked them a lot, and have tried the style when designing my own pages. Have you adopted this style?

 

I do like this style, it looks very neat and sleek. I have adopted for minimal themes on my blogs and forums as well. Mostly the minimal designs are responsive too so that is a plus as well.

 

On the down side, far too many of them look the same though, and this will soon be considered boring.

 

I am in complete agreement here. The options specially with colors - get limited. Also, the look and feel and almost every other site looks similar at least in layout.

But, then, there are a couple of advantages too -
1. We all know, Big G has started giving the page load speed some importance when they rate a site. The minimal design thing seems to be lightweight (at least in designs) as you can now get rid of images on a website - Minimalist approach + the Flat design is good for this combined together with the Power of CSS3 (virtually, no images are needed).

2. The minimalist design also helps in easier coding for the responsive thing - this allows the site and the pages to load better on smaller and handheld devices - these devices are the future as of now. So, definitely, the minimalist thing scores better.

However, what happened with the Web 2.0 will happen to the minimalist designs too as "we are all dead in the long run". - this is how things are in real life and also on the Internet

 

I absolutely adore the move towards minimal design, although, I've never been a person who has liked the cluttered, kitchen sink look. As a web developer I can state how much easier flat, minimal design is to integrate. Also, it is a lot better looking.

As @SimplySidy said - "2. The minimalist design also helps in easier coding for the responsive thing - this allows the site and the pages to load better on smaller and handheld devices - these devices are the future as of now. So, definitely, the minimalist thing scores better." - a minimalistic design is exponentially easier to code responsively, as you don't have to worry about where this and that will go, because there isn't much of it.

I do believe that the minimalistic design movement is a step in the right direction.

 

This has definitely been the trend in web design today. The main reason behind this is because people visiting websites simply want to get what they are looking without wasting much time. Keeping everything simple and straight-forward is crucial because people will easily leave a site if it looks complicated. The most important thing though is trying to go for customized minimal design.

 

Like anything else, trends will change again.

 

Yes and no. Actually, the answer leans more towards the "no" part, 'cause minimalism is misused today. Let me explain.

"Minimal" means "the absolutely necessary" as far as design goes. Not more, but, here's the problem, no less as well. Many companies and designers have forgotten about that last part.

By "no less" I mean that, yeah, minimalism is great, but if to implement a minimal design you have to remove features from your app/site/whatever or make them harder to find, well, you're doing it wrong. Remember when Microsoft took out of reach half the functionality of Office by exchanging its menus for a not-that-well-designed "ribbon bar"? Oh, what jolly good times... Yay for minimalism (not).

I say, we send Google's designers over at Boeing, to "minimalize" their airplanes cockpits.

- "Hey, Hans, where did the `open landing gear` button go?"

- "Somewhere on the landing gear, Rudolf. Let's flip a coin to see who'll have to climb to get to it".

Yay minimalism, again. But of course the argument runs both ways.

Do a search for "Microsoft marketing training video" and you'll surely fall upon a vid created by Microsoft itself, sometime in the 90's, making fun of its own marketing department and the way they presented their programs up to then. I remember vividly that it showed Apples boxes, plainly stating "Apple - iPod", with a plain white background and only the necessary information on one side. The box itself was clean and, up to a point, a "status symbol" of design. Yay minimalism, for realz this time.

A Microsoft's box on the other hand, for, say, Microsoft Office, showed what in Greece we lately call "tin mana too keh ton patera too", "its mother and father". It's a humorous expression meaning that a box for, say, Office, shouldn't, of course, have photos of "its mother and father", but the product itself. And yet, on a typical box for the earlier versions of Microsoft's Office you could find, apart from the hardware specifications needed to run the software, also information for ALL its new features, ALL the copyrights, together with at least 6 "fake stickers" with glossy stars and eye-bleeding colors shouting that it ruled. If they could, they would also add "a photo of its father", Bill Gates, but it would overlap with all the rest of the stuff.

And, on the other hand, the white box of the iPod. With a plain "Apple" on one side. Selling like hot cakes.

So, the conclusion is that yes, minimalism and minimal design are great, but when used where they should be used and the way they should be used. Not forced upon anything and everything because "minimal, yay", 'cause then the phrase turns to "minimal, nay". CoughGooglePlusCough. :-D

 

This for sure. After a while you'll find the pale colours and whatnot getting repetitive (especially if you visit a lot of those kinds of websites). A good thing is that developers are using the tools available to them to make websites that are a little similar, but the UI/UX is very different.

 

I love the minimal design style! I've never been one for crazy colors and a ton of buttons, etc. anyway, and I love that the minimalist design wraps everything up in a simple, intuitive package so that pretty much everyone who visits the site doesn't get lost. Also, I love the overbearing use of black and white with a little splash of color because I think that it brings a lot more attention to the actual information. Graphic design should be used to emphasize the meat and potatoes of the website, not distracting from it.
Additionally, the minimal design style is much easier to code for responsive design, so coding the mobile version is easier as well.

 

I was always a fan of the minimalist style but I always felt like it was a bit overused. It seems like it was the go-to layout for anyone that considered themselves "sophisticated" or "avant-garde." It slowly but surely turned into on of those layout that you would run into at least once a day. What's even funnier is that people started using minimalist layouts on Tumblr, which is suppose to be a website that is mainly visual based! All that aside, I'm actually a fan of the new minimalist layout. I know it's only a matter of time before it will be all over your (and my) favorite trendy blog so like it before it gets played out.

 

@LitoLawless Blame BootStrap and all similar "platforms" (don't know how else to call them these days) who come with pre-defined styles and purty graphics and icons each "web-designer" / webdev can use freely. A 99% of them do. And create sites that are 99% similar.

The 1% who don't, charge at least $1000 per hour

 

It is not that these platforms [bootstrap and its likes] don't offer variations. Some of the features like the colors, fonts etc can definitely be changed via their website based applications. And if you really want to change more, almost all of these frameworks come with permissions to do so and also a list of instructions to get the changes done.

The problem is - we humans are impatient and lazy by nature. So when we already have almost everything ready framework, and making changes is complicated, instead of taking up the pains to change, we prefer to stick with what we get for free.

The use of such frameworks also has opened doors for millions who now call them Website Designers and Developers. And unfortunately, they know not much about anything, not even the these Frameworks

 

I LOVE minimal design, but even more than that I love minimal markup. Why have 2 divs when you can have 1 and use proper CSS to achieve your goals? Let's not make a HUGE mess of everything.

As for frameworks I can't stand them. I hate using them, and more than that I hate that there is so much fat code in them (because they have to cater to everyone there's going to be bloat in every project). I have always enjoyed making my own things from scratch. I had so much trouble trying to install Bootstrap and get it working I found myself in tears at 3am the night before my assignment was due. 12 hours later using Skeleton I had a working design that was beautiful....but honestly I had to change so much that I have to say why bother? I could have had that entire website done in 4 hours if I had done it my own way.

I thought the point of the frameworks was to build a quick prototype or to help developers who were not so great at design produce something that showed the sort of thing they were trying to achieve? Bootstrap is actually quite sexy, but I honestly don't see the point in using it.

 

@Alunny "minimal design" is actually a specific design term, and it doesn't have to do with "using less DIVs" - or anything to do with code. It refers purely to the graphics, page setup and general "aesthetics" of a design and it means "using the absolutely necessary in your design, nothing more, nothing fancy", giving priority to the information itself.

To "get it" look at a package from some Apple's product and then compare it to most other packages you could find. Apple will show you a photo of the device and its name. Maybe their apple logo as well, on some corner. Microsoft will ALSO show you 10 features with bulletpoints, MORE photos, some stars and stripes, Robocop on a pink unicorn... The first is "minimal design". The second's "a disaster" :-D

 

I do get it, I am saying my personal love and preference of it extends further than that, into the actual markup itself. What the hell is the point of having a minimal design with a tonne of markup anyway? Seems like a complete waste of time to me.

Also it depends, if I was comparing two products I would want all the info I could get to decide....if all Apple shows me is a picture and a small description and Microsoft goes the extra mile and gets me all excited about their product I'm going with Microsoft. But now you're off topic cause the amount of information has nothing to do with "minimal design" ha ha

 

@Alunny Heh, yeah, indeed I got off topic :-D

Anyways, "Minimal Design" is as I've told you a... well... somewhat specific term defining "that kind of design" we're talking about, not the way you structure your code. If your code doesn't have bloat, it's not "Minimal Design code", it's just "clean code", that's why I "corrected" you. I didn't notice you said you ALSO love "minimal markup" - my bad, shoot me

As for "the products", nah, that's the point where "you don't get it", but you're not wrong in what you're saying. It's just that you haven't seen the specific video I talked about, presenting Apples and Microsoft's version of a similar product box. In it, Microsoft was poking fun at themselves, by adding MORE text, MORE images, MORE bulletpoints, to the point where they couldn't fit on the sides of the box so "folds" were introduced to be able to display "even more stuffz"!

Microsoft's boxes (and designs) have gotten waaaay better than they were ten years ago, but they're still "complex" compared to Apples offerings, and, to stay on point, you wouldn't call their design "minimal" in any way.

On a completely irrelevant topic... Are you also Greek? Your alias "means something", phonetically, in Greek :-D

 

Omg what does it mean? It's a nickname for my nickname which is Alundra! Everyone called me Lunny and I didn't like it, because it didn't feel like Alundra so I added the A and it felt good after that! Now I don't mind being called Lunny, but I prefer Al.

My real name is Jade, and I discovered that my other username (first one I ever had) of yuk is actually Chinese for Jade LOL. Well that's what a nice Chinese man told me anyway .

Anyways, on topic: OH Now I understand, I thought you were talking about their website's product description! I don't mind a flap in a box but I hate when there's tonnes of them. Honestly it gets too much. I don't like blank boxes either...I want the critical info right away, you know? Nothing worse than getting home and discovering your "smart phone headphones" don't work with your smart phone. Which has happened to me 4 times now, so no headphones for me .

 

@Alunny Well, it's a bit difficult to explain, since it's "slang". It's written "Alani", pronounced "Ah-lan-ee", and it can mean, among other things, "awesomely cool and very independent and / or rebellious bloke who's also a bit of an outsider and / or different than the rest". I'll try to "pass" the meaning to you by direct inter-brainial communication between us. That means "by examples" :-D

* A 35 year old dude who travells the globe on his Harley without giving a damn about the rest of the world could be called an "alani".

* That dude who left his parents home at 15 without caring that he'd have to sleep in parks, just for the heck of walking his own path, could also be called an "alani".

You've picked a great one and, at the same time, difficult to explain. Bonus, we don't usually use it for girls, which I gather you happen to be, so that makes you even more "alani" :-D

And, on topic, yeah. Like that.