"Minimalism" Is Just Designer Speak for Laziness
Minimalism is a big craze at the minute. Think for a moment; how many pure white designs did you see online today?
There are good principles underneath this all of course, and most likely you already know them.
Minimalism = Less clutter = Less distractions = More time focusing on the important stuff.
But do all minimalist designs work with this principle in mind? Do you not feel that in some cases, a designer has just thrown a few divs together and dubbed his theme minimalist?
Minimalism In Blog Design
Readability is priority #1 for most bloggers. If a person can't read your post, what was the point in writing it? And in the effort to improve your readability, you've met the add-whitespace logic before.
That ones easy. Here's another one that you also know, but may not think about so readily when someone mentions minimalism.
There are exceptions to both graphs, but the general trend is true. And here's what happens when we combine the graphs.
Minimalism Is The Means, Not the End
The end is a site which guides users easily to the information they need, but still makes an impression when they first arrive, and leaves one when they leave.
If minimalism is the means of achieving that, then all well and good.
But you never aim for a minimalist design itself. You don't reach a point where you can say, "I've added enough nothingness to call this done." That's just designer speak for laziness, and minimalism does have it's downsides in the wrong situations.
The end comes solely when you've reached your real goals, by whatever means.
So, when you chose the theme for your blog, did you want it to be minimal, or did you want it to be usable?
And as another little talking point, what other ways do you find that ample whitespace influences a design?
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About the Author - Michael Martin is the founder of Pro Blog Design. He works as a freelance web designer, loves WordPress, and has an unhealthy addiction to smilies. Written on 22nd January 2008.
Other posts tagged with Design, Diagram, Minimalism, Site Goals, Typography, Usability.
22nd January, 10:17 am GMT
You've put it very right way and I think the best example for this is http://www.webdesignerwall.com/. I think this site has perfect balance of whitespaces and memorability. It has excellent readability and leaves long lasting impression. I tried same with my site, but I still donno i've achieved it or not. I'd love a feeedback
22nd January, 12:33 pm GMT
Kuldeep, Web Designer Wall really is a fantastic site. The design is so utterly unique and every part of it is done to perfection. And in between all of that illustration, he still managed to leave enough space to make it perfectly legible.
As for your site; it's very good. Plenty of spacing, no clutter, and the starry banner is great. Just 2 little things bugged me; in your DOMtabs, on the 3 tabs that aren't active, you've used the bright blue border on top of them. I think they'd look more in the background if you got rid of that. And also, a good slogan wouldn't hurt.
22nd January, 1:23 pm GMT
I find that when I go for a minimal design I try to add those nice touches of design that wills till catch someone eye. that maybe a nice graphic, big headers, a hover image on the menu. What ever it is it is there to take your eye of the white space and feel its a nice design if i just put up some divs, left the style sheet standard that would be a sucky web site�
22nd January, 2:28 pm GMT
Clever. The graphs are nice.
22nd January, 2:33 pm GMT
Grant,
Sounds like you've got the right idea. I suppose the hard part then comes in deciding when you've added enough to make the design unique enough, or adding too much and losing your legibility.
Read,
Glad you liked them. Probably more interesting than reading me waffle on.
22nd January, 5:35 pm GMT
You nailed it.I've talked about it before, but I think you've got it.The difficulty is finding that balance.:-/
22nd January, 7:54 pm GMT
I think the key to minimalism is that (un)memorability and minimalism are not necessarily related. Although you are using less design elements, if these elements are focused and original, I would argue they were more effective than other design styles. Sadly its not something that is pulled off everyday.
It would be good to isolate/analyse what exactly are the memorable parts of minimalist designs.
22nd January, 9:53 pm GMT
Well, that's one of the reasons why I've implemented a second stylesheet via the switcher: minimalist style =D
However some of those minimalist styles are just bare naked, but as Philip mentioned, a deeper analysis would be quite interesting.
22nd January, 11:04 pm GMT
Brian,
That was a great post. We're both agreed 100% here it seems.
Philip,
That would be a very interesting topic indeed. There are plenty of really fantastic minimalist designs around, and there are plenty of less fantastic ones as well. Seeing what makes a design fall into which category would be a great topic. I'll have to attempt that one someday.
Milo,
Cool. I think we really will have to do that analysis then.
23rd January, 2:50 am GMT
I love your graph. And I also agree on your intersection point. That's the point that we have to keep finding, to improve our designs.Again, The graph is so smart
23rd January, 6:41 am GMT
Hey! Thanks Micheal for feedback, i'll try to work on those points.
23rd January, 12:38 pm GMT
Hieu,
Thanks. The inspiration behind using graphs came entirely from Creating Passionate Users. I think I'll try to use more and more of them in future.
Kuldeep,
No problem. They were just 2 really minor points!
24th January, 8:46 am GMT
The aim of minimalism is supposed to allow the reader to digest the presented ideas without the distraction of some clutters. But the blog design itself is an idea. It what makes the blog memorable. That's why even if I subscribe in RSS reader, I'd prefer to read the post directly in a browser (assuming the blog has a nice design, that is).
If the whole idea of minimalism is to stripped down the design element to its most fundamental form, then I tend to disagree. User (reader) experience is not about simplicity in design. Rather, it's about reader enjoyment when reading and staying in the blog.
Have everyone ever feel somewhat happy when visiting someone else's house because the interior is nicer and more luxurious than yours? well, the same thing applied to blog.
24th January, 12:43 pm GMT
Gunady,
I really, really liked this line: "User (reader) experience is not about simplicity in design. Rather,
it's about reader enjoyment when reading and staying in the blog."
You've summed it up far better than I could. A simple design is a noble goal, but an enjoyable one is the real goal.
25th January, 2:16 am GMT
I definitely agree Michael. I'll be the first to admit that I love minimalist designs (that is what NiceStylesheet is based around), but I see what you're saying. When someone has a white background, with a couple divs and some text and says viola! It's minimal. That's not so good.For me, minimal design is all about eliminating clutter, but not simply just throwing a couple divs together. For example, my blog. I'm really starting to not like my design, and if I weren't working on other things, I would redesign it. In the new design, I already know that MyBlogLog is leaving, and so is the Amazon CSS books in my footer. They add just about no value at all, except for simply doing what everyone else is doing, hehehe. I plan on having a much more professional and polished look in the new design and only including the stuff that I look at as essential in the transfer of content to everyone that reads my blog.-Deron
25th January, 12:42 pm GMT
Deron,
(You don't want extra design details interfering with the pics, and the pics themselves are more than interesting enough).
With a site like Nice Stylesheet though, you have all the colorful images in the design. I'm not sure how well the minimalist theme would work on a plain text site, but on a gallery, it's perfect.
As for Random Jabber, I still like it, but I'd also love to see what else you can come up with.
25th January, 6:58 pm GMT
Minimalism does not equate to white. It is a movement by itself. Whitespace does not necessary mean using the color white literally. It generally means visual breathing space.I agree that there are many people out there who would lazily throw minimal amount of elements together and call it 'minimalism'. But to make a general sweeping statement and say that 'minimalism' is just 'lazy designer speak' is just not justifiable either.It is not easy in design to make something look great and minimal at the same time. A very well-known and successful example of minimalism in design – Apple products. We wouldn't call Jonathan Ive 'lazy' would we?
25th January, 9:27 pm GMT
Winnie,
I didn't mean to imply that all minimalism is lazy, but a lot of it is. This post was about pulling up the less concerted efforts, which use the word "minimalism," as a get out of jail free card. I could have added "Sometimes" to the start of the header, but it wouldn't have sounded as good then.
25th January, 11:19 pm GMT
Minimalist design only works when the designer knows how to use typography, color, shape, information architecture and proportion effectively (and applies that knowledge). It's not so much being lazy, rather a knowledge of the fundamental principals of good design that will have the biggest impact on the end result.If you choose poor colors or poor typography in a minimal design there's nothing to detract the users attention from that, whereas with other design "movements" you could use other graphical elements to dilute the mistakes.
29th January, 1:24 pm GMT
Hello Michael. I agree with Winnie Lim (#17) that white-space is more of a breathing space rather than white (#FFFFFF) itself. Also, I think excessive white, while it tends to suggest minimalism, is making the site extremely dull (like those default white Blogspot blogs). A light shade of color will still communicate minimalism and liven up the site a little bit..
29th January, 3:19 pm GMT
Garrett - That's true. A minimalist design needs a lot of things to work. There is a lot more to it than de-cluttering.
Black Zedd - I agree. "Negative space" is the proper term, but "whitespace" is the popularised term.
31st January, 2:25 pm GMT
No minimalism is not design speak for lazyness, but yet some designers use it as an excuse to be lazy. I was lazy with my website, because I couldn't be arsed designing anything (actually I'm to busy) but I wouldn't call it "minimalism".
Nice blog by the way.
31st January, 3:45 pm GMT
I love minimalistic designs. They express beauty by providing just what is needed (including usability). Such a thing is difficult to achieve: if the designer is just lazy, the result is poor, not minimalistic.
(sry for bad english, I'm Italian)
31st January, 6:30 pm GMT
Ryan,
Exactly. It is just used as an excuse sometimes.
Gianluca,
There is definitely an art to true minimalism. I agree; it does show when a designer has just been lazy.
20th February, 6:56 pm GMT
Minimalist is a style. Like any style its reception is subjective. You are either drawn to it or you're not.Your sheets are plain white and not patterned by choice.Your car has no bumper stickers or chrome on it by choice.True minimalist designs, by *definition*, don't fall into your "sweet spot" circle ... by choice!You may find them boring or not memorable ... by your taste.Web Designer Wall is 100% not minimalist. It is painstakingly crafted and I can fully appreciate the effort put into it. When I load the site, I wince and recoil from it the color and activity. That's my taste reacting.
21st February, 8:43 pm GMT
Jeff,
You're right; it's just another style, but I do love minimalism. My point here wasn't to attack it; it was to attack simple designs. Branding laziness as minimalism is annoying to see
Web Designer Wall definitely isn't minimalist; that's why I listed it. Very little whitespace, but still very readable!
Aestheria on the other hand is a really well done minimalist blog.
10th March, 10:15 pm GMT
I like this. I try to make mine sort of simple because when it's cluttered I find it's disorganized. (I think that's just something I like.)It's all about balance. Like you said.
11th March, 6:13 pm GMT
Chiya,
), but at the same time, splashing out on a bit of color or a certain graphic can be well worth it sometimes. 
Balance is always the key. Keeping the clutter down is great (I had no problem finding my way about your site
12th March, 11:13 am GMT
Minimalism is not about being lazy. For a business it is all about sales. What you shouldn't be doing is making a page so cluttered it only distracts and prevents the user from being able to navigate the site.
I have revamped a number of sites recently and for each one that went more minimal the sales increased. For the last 10 years designing websites I've tried to live by two main rules:
1. Just because you can doesn't mean you should
2. K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid)
Both of these work just as well for the web as they do for business.
12th March, 3:10 pm GMT
Simon,
But what about the brand itself? Has it ever become less recognizable because of over-minimalism?
In blogs in particular, I think that a unique design holds a lot of merit.
9th May, 2:16 pm GMT
I do agree with the idea of using minimalism to moderation, but occasionally, if done well, minimalism can be used to create a memorable design. The problem is many people try to create a design that is memorable, and fail because they think the task will be much easier than it is.
Overall, I found this to be an interesting (and inspirational) post.
10th May, 1:56 am GMT
Omition,
Thanks. Your blog looks good. Good luck with it!
12th July, 10:29 am GMT
Is it possible to name the design of my site a minimalism or it is a delirium all the same?