Minimalism has been a popular website design style for years. It has so many benefits; minimalist sites load faster, take fewer server resources, and are often faster to develop than more graphically complicated designs. Plus, they give a professional, clean impression to visitors.
Many people still view minimalist designs as boring. But there’s a real art to effective minimal website designs, something not all designers can effectively master. When you limit the number of graphic elements you use and put the focus on negative space and typography, a good eye for spacing and proportion becomes crucial.
Below are more than 100 excellent examples of clean, simple and minimalist website designs. They run the gamut from simple brochure-style sites to ecommerce and portfolio sites. What they all have in common is a design aesthetic where less is more.
Rainfall Daffinson
A white background with red accents.
Ben Hulse Design
Dark gray background with white and gray lettering.
Amy Levy PR
White background with gray and red lettering.
Brand Spanking New
A black and white color scheme with gray, orange, and pale blue accents.
Frieze Magazine
A minimalist grid design.
Indie Labs
A dark gray, white and sky blue grid-based design.
Rikcat Industries
An entirely black and white design.
The Morning News
A minimalist magazine-style site.
Mark Boulton Design
A mostly black and white site with colored accents.
Jonnotie
A gray and maroon design.
Finch
A mostly black, white and gray design.
Maqina
A single column portfolio site.
Chama Inc.
A simple black and white design with an emphasis on typography.
Jon Tan
Another simple black and white design with orange accents and great typography.
Mark Wieman
Gray and White with mustard-yellow accents.
Cameron.io
A simple dove gray and white design with red accents.
Postmachina
Black background with gray and white text.
Concentric Studio
A simple design with a lot of white space.
DS.Emotion
A simple design that makes good use of drop shadows and red accents.
Kyle Sollenberger Design
Uses a soft color palette and slightly oversized text.
David Sutoyo
A soft gray, white and dark blue design.
Brad Young Photography
A dark background with soft gray and blue typography.
The DECK
A black and white design with strong typographical elements.
Hot Meteor
A simple design with retro elements.
The Portfolio of Matt Bango
Another simple design with blue accents and an emphasis on typography.
Vesess
Another black and white design with gray and red accents.
Design Intellection
A grid-based design with excellent typography.
Surfstation
A soft color palette and a two-column design with lots of white space.
The Old Fashioned
A black and white grid-based design.
CRW / Corporate Risk Watch
Uses a textured background and some hand-drawn elements.
Being Wicked
A mostly black and white design with oversized typography.
Eduardo de La Rocque
A dark gray and white, single column design.
Pixelumbrella
A rarely-seen minimalist grunge design.
NineZero
A narrow, single-column design with a lot of white space.
SimpleBits
A simple design with a textured header and a focus on typography.
Poccuo
A grid-based design with blue, gray and black text.
Davroc Interiors
A design composed entirely of shades of bluish-gray.
Sascha Eggenberger
Hand-drawn elements in black and white with blue accents set this design apart.
Nathan Carnes
A subtle color scheme and textures with black and gray typography.
Nathan Borror
Makes use of colored and geometric accents while still retaining plenty of white space and a simple design.
Beseku
A black and white design with an emphasis on typography.
NZ Venues
A subtle dark gray and white design with small, multi-colored accents.
Chris Garrett Media Ltd
A dark design with subtle gradients in the typography and blue accents.
DesigningTheNews.com
A black and gray design with a focus on typography.
3by9
A multi-colored minimal design with colorful accents and lots of white space.
Typographica
A black, white, and gray design that places emphasis on the images it displays and uses a grid-based design.
Theme
A magazine/grid-style design with orange accents.
Monty Lounge Industries
A blue and gray design with an emphasis on typography.
Berit Somme
A black, white and gray design that places the emphasis on the portfolio pieces.
el Candor
A black and white grid-based portfolio site.
Design by Silnt
A grid-based design in shades of gray.
Pixelcraft
A cream-colored background and black typography keep things simple.
Klipp og Lim
A grid-based design with a portfolio slideshow in the header.
Ole Martin Kristiansen
A dark background with subtly-colored typography.
SiteInspire
A gray site with bright red accents.
MediaFlex
A dark background with white typography that leaves the emphasis on the images.
Vudumedia
A black, gray and white grid-based design.
AREA 17
A black, white and gray design with some dark blue typography.
just.dot
A grayish-brown background and a grid-based design.
LegiStyles
A dark background with an emphasis on typography and tomato-red accents.
Visualbox
A subtly-patterned dark-gray background with bold white and gray typography.
Flush
A dark gray, slightly-grungy design.
Designme
A dark background with gray and white typography.
Designjunction.in
A dark background with lighter typography.
deCode
A dark, textured background with hand-drawn elements and a bit of a retro vibe.
72 Rivington Street
A bold, black and white grid design.
Analogue Motion
A grid-based design with a subtle color palette and typography.
Astheria
A subtle blue, gray and white design with plenty of negative space.
Cade Martin Photography
A white and gray design with the emphasis on the typography.
Daniel Howells
A subtle design that focuses on the typography.
Eightface.com
A black and white design with red highlights.
Fever
A gray background with gray and red text.
Fell Swoop
A white background with black and red typography and tons of negative space.
FRKT
A black and white design with subtle textures.
Jamie Gregory
A grid-based deisgn that focuses on typography.
Joni Korpi
A gray and black design with an emphasis on typography.
Matt Hinchliffe
A black and white design with light blue accents.
Martin Hipp
White background and green accents.
Stefan Persson
A grid-based design with orange accents.
Strange/Beautiful
A gray and white grid-based design.
Voce antica
A white and gray two-column design.
Inkcover Blog
A black and white design with oversized typography.
Allday.cc
A very simple black and white design with minimalist navigation.
Final Eyes
A black, white and gray single-column design.
80/20
A gray color scheme with green accents.
Craig Wilson
A very simple black and white design with hand-drawn elements.
Pomade
An extremely minimalist design with black text and red accents.
SOFA
A grid-based design that emphasizes typography.
The Typographic Desk Reference (TDR)
A minimalist sales page that utilizes modal windows.
I love Typography
A simple design with olive green typography accents.
Artypapers
A white background and subtle gray and pink color scheme.
Sisson Studio
A brown and tan grid-based design with a white background.
We Love Typography
A grid-based design with a white background.
Gordymac
A blue and gray design with plenty of white space.
National College of Art & Design: Postgraduate Study
A gray design with circular images and white text.
Minimalissimo
Black and gray typography with plenty of white space.
Wide Angled
A grid-based site that puts the emphasis on the images it features.
Hair Ott
A gray, black and white design with a Flash slideshow in the header.
Tim Parkin
A grid-based design with a white background.
Selldorf Architects
A simple black and white design.
LUXUX
A grid-based portfolio site.
Fluid
A grid-based design with a white background and simple typography.
Saturday
A simple design with a Flash slideshow.
The May Blog
A simple gray and green color scheme on a white background./p>
quadrifolia
A very bold green and white design.
Dhyr.Hagen
A bold gray and white design.
Nonesuch Records
A simple black and white design with an emphasis on imagery.
About Author – Cameron Chapman is a professional Web and graphic designer with over 7 years of experience. She writes for a number of blogs, including her own, Cameron Chapman On Writing. She’s also the author of Internet Famous: A Practical Guide to Becoming an Online Celebrity.
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Posted by hongkiat in Inspiration , at 10.29.09
Tags: clean, Design, minimalist, simple, website |
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Comments
ginwe October 29th, 2009
wow, really good collection of the clean website design, it is really benefit to our Orangesoft Web Design Malaysia. Really appreaciate Hong Kiat. Our company website is here http://www.egnarosoft.com THX A LOT
Replyseethemes October 29th, 2009
ALL this website very simple and good for personal site and yes like simple website..
ReplyMinimalissimo October 29th, 2009
Hi guys,
Thanks for including Minimalissimo. As a blog on minimalist design, we feel it’s important to really practice what we preach. Therefore it means a lot to find ourselves in these types of roundups!
Kind regards,
ReplyMaarten
Daniel Howells October 29th, 2009
Thanks for featuring three of my sites!
Replyjanice October 29th, 2009
Thanks for putting that list together.
Another nice minimal site worth looking at is:
Replyhttp://www.ian-hodgson.co.uk
Rilwis October 30th, 2009
I love the minimalist designs. This is the biggest list of this type of design I’ve seen. Some of them like the Morning magazine are very cool. I think in the minimalist designs, typography is a very important character of success.
Thank you very much for this post.
ReplyRob Brix October 30th, 2009
Nice selection. I especially like those with white background and big headers. Another clean and minimalist design I found: faqbay.com
ReplyCraig October 30th, 2009
Nice list. Many of these I hadn’t seen before.
I still thinkAuxiliary Design Co. has one of the coolest minimal sites around.
ReplyMike Locke October 30th, 2009
Nice list. Very inspirational. Archived.
ReplyBen l Awesome Wallpapers October 30th, 2009
Nice post. I think minimalist web designs are awesome:)
ReplyCian October 30th, 2009
Craig Wilsons site just uses a free brush set available on deviantart. Anybody could have made that site, those brushes aren’t even for commercial use afaik.
ReplyMatt M. October 30th, 2009
This is probably one of the largest 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.
Replydesignfollow October 30th, 2009
thanks for this great post
ReplyHongpak October 30th, 2009
Good for example for webdesigner. Thanks
ReplyPerphic October 30th, 2009
Good examples of smart use of grids and negative space. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyHonkie October 30th, 2009
I also like http://nemetral.com
ReplyHan Cheng October 30th, 2009
Thanks. Some of the designs are very good!
ReplyAlex Flueras October 30th, 2009
Here is another minimal clean site: http://www.studioweber.com
Replyalessandro d'agnano October 30th, 2009
My site is very minimal….
http://www.alessandrodagnano.com
enjoy
Replyegings October 31st, 2009
Don’t forget mine -> http://www.eti-n.com !!!
ReplyDamian October 31st, 2009
Nice collections. HK, When will you turns yours to one of them? Just kidding.. :P
Replysocial networking October 31st, 2009
Thanks for the info, thanks for sharing.
Replygeld lenen October 31st, 2009
And you know what’s best? I”ve found out these minimalist designs usually turn out to be perceived as the most user-friendly!
Replyrburch October 31st, 2009
I’m a big fan of minimalist design an am currently simplifying my own site. It’s a lot harder than you would think to take a lot of elements and organize them into something simple and elegant. A great site featuring only minimalist designs is : http://www.minimalsites.com. Worth subscribing to.
ReplyMPC November 1st, 2009
more minimalist design and elegan…
ReplyPulsa Elektrik Market Pulsa Pulsa Murah Business
Surgical Instruments November 1st, 2009
Great list! Our site was certainly inspired by this minimalist movement in web design.
ReplyLennart November 1st, 2009
Great post, check out my post to find more examples: http://lennartbasler.com/blog/2009/08/great-inspiration-for-clean-and-minimal-webdesign/
ReplyRahul Chowdhury November 1st, 2009
Wow, nice designs, really liked them. Posted this page at http://pagememe.com
ReplyJannie Funster November 2nd, 2009
I like that Frieze a lot, a lot-a lot. And the Nonesuch, but especially the Frieze, if it works as great as it looks, I think I’ll be a-switching for good to that.
Thank you.
ReplyYoshz November 2nd, 2009
good collections and nice sharing
Replysteppinout November 2nd, 2009
Hey HK. I’m amazed with your works. Always comes with great post.
Replyrozy November 2nd, 2009
i like theme magazine
ReplyDaniel November 2nd, 2009
Great list. Kinda like a few of them that has good use of whitespace. Esp The Deck, Astheria … Silnt’s design is a unique one here. :)
ReplySerene November 2nd, 2009
Great collection here. Are these Wordpress themes?
ReplyPhillip November 2nd, 2009
Man, out of 100, I just knew I would make it. Nope.
ReplyLiamm.co.uk November 2nd, 2009
Nice post, suprised subtraction wasnt listed
Replyreezluv November 2nd, 2009
great list..simple and minimalist website design always caught my intention.KISS…:P
ReplyDJ Designer Lab November 3rd, 2009
Nice collection. Please see this link also for some clean soft elegant beautiful web2.0 xhtml div websites
Replyhttp://djdesignerlab.com/2009/11/01/20-clean-soft-elegant-beautiful-web2-0-xhtml-div-websites/
baratas November 4th, 2009
Great list! Congratulations. Saúde e paz! Peace.
Replywebsite design November 4th, 2009
Hey that was a really nice list… I work in a website designing company and appreciate it a lot… Thanks a lot for sharing…
Replygouthami.b November 4th, 2009
Hey.Nice collection..How do you get these ideas dude?
Replydinda November 5th, 2009
thanks for sharing this great post.
http://torrenttvdevice.blogspot.com
ReplyAhmad Halimi November 5th, 2009
great list!! there is this website that really deserves to be up there:
Replyhttp://www.blacklab.com.au
http://www.eviska.com/ November 5th, 2009
The designs are awesome and excellent
ReplyAccess Control System November 5th, 2009
The website designs are excellent and wonderful collection
ReplySoft Skills November 5th, 2009
Awesome sharing. I love that just.dot and wondering how did you get all the good links? Must be lots of research being done.
ReplyMark Wieman November 6th, 2009
Thank you for featuring my web site. I am proud to be included in such an excellent list.
ReplyThe Pro Designer November 6th, 2009
Pixelcraft is such a nice design and is really the best minimal example of have seen…
ReplyPremium Theme Club November 7th, 2009
whenever there is a clean and simple design,there must be a good typography.
ReplyAltis Lo (Beaulife) November 8th, 2009
Undoubtedly, this is an awesome collection and compilation to share and view it from time to time. The designs are very pleasing and I feel very relaxed after whole day work under tension/pressure. Thumb up!
[Delighting Lifestyle] Best Buy And Idea | Blog And Store
ReplyFollow me on Twitter
plywood india November 9th, 2009
Fantastic effort , Nice design of web design Layouts
Replyweb design egypt November 10th, 2009
nice post
Replythanks for your amazing collection
Wordpress Themes November 11th, 2009
Wow, these are well designed websites! Most of them are use wordpress!
Replybilelz November 13th, 2009
nice.
What do you think about my website? Is it simple? http://www.bilelz.fr
Reply:-D
Web Designs Home November 15th, 2009
(I got error msg while submitting twice. so, submitting again)
Im running a WEB DESIGN SERVICES Company in India. Most of our template designs are Cotrast & WEB 2.0 look & feel.
But i will follow your collections (similar simple & clean) to our future clients.
So, What you think about our website?
ReplyCheap SEO November 16th, 2009
Excellent post.All the information of this post are very useful all the new blogger.I would like to thanks that master brain who make all this for the readers like me.keep up writing good job.
Replyvalenciax November 20th, 2009
I like ‘we are a sofa’ website
Replyseo faqs November 21st, 2009
Wonderful collection of websites , Thanks for sharing
Replyzuwairiaiman November 24th, 2009
as a web designer.. i’m impress with all of that
ReplyRobbyDesigns November 27th, 2009
Some nice sites there thanks. You’ve prably never heard of this site but since I first stumbled across it two years ago it’s decoupage/minimalist style has always been my favourite website design online today (the nav is at the bottom):
Replyhttp://www.tadaya.net/
electronic November 27th, 2009
amazing photography, thanks for sharing…
Replyi love macro photography!
coach November 27th, 2009
as a web designer.. i’m impress with all of that.
Replyweight November 27th, 2009
Wonderful collection of websites , Thanks for sharing.
Replyjlopezto November 27th, 2009
great collection.
ReplyAziq December 1st, 2009
love minimalist site with a magazine site style.thanks for the share.
ReplyKevinChong December 3rd, 2009
Great list too. I love the thesis theme and wordpress theme. I seldom like the Minimalist design.
ReplyKevinChong December 3rd, 2009
Another that, I love the clean and simple themes, because it is given a user a nice place, good impression, and important is easy to use and see all the things closed my eyes.
ReplyLaurent JOUVIN December 4th, 2009
Simpler is better… less is more. This is a wonderful reminder that sometimes it is better to remain simple and more concise.
Replywiyono December 30th, 2009
really-really nice templates
Replykacahati January 3rd, 2010
nICE ‘N Very SimPle SitE…. :-)
ReplyFresh January 5th, 2010
I still think http://www.fresh4design.com is a cool minimal site
ReplyBen Stokes January 9th, 2010
Great collection. . . A lovely collection of designs, food for thought.
ReplyEric Di Bari January 9th, 2010
I got inspiration from these sites to come up with the first revision of my website here at http://www.employeratlas.com – it may be a little to simple though. Any suggestions?
ReplyCarl Wallace January 22nd, 2010
We specialize in minimalistic sites! BEAUTIFUL!!!
http://www.acesmedia.co.za
Let me know what you think!!
ReplyBlueprint Groupe January 28th, 2010
Thanks for including one of our sites http://www.bradyoungphotography.com. I love designing minimalistic sites with simple, clear navigation. I just wish more clients would take my word on what really works and what is overkill.
ReplyCanlı ve erotik şov,+18sohbet January 31st, 2010
wooow 100 adet güzel bea.
ReplyConstantin February 4th, 2010
one hell of a list. thanks a lot.
ReplyInfographiste PAO February 6th, 2010
thanks for this great post, great inspirations & great designs
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