Ah, Neumorphism. We love to see it.

Neumorphism is my favorite design trend thus far in 2020 and it’ll take a lot to surpass it.

We’ve been seeing it a lot lately, and we stan.

What is Neumorphism?

Neumorphism is a new modern graphic design technique that is a combination of skeuomorphism, flat design, and realism.

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Neumorphism is actually a play on words that means New Skeuomorphism.

If you’re not familiar with the term skeuomorphism, well, think of the old version of Apple, before they had all their sleek, minimalist, and modern updates.

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Skeuomorphism is the design concept of making items represented resemble their real-world counterparts. Skeuomorphism is commonly used in many design fields, including user interface (UI) and Web design, architecture, ceramics, and interior design. Skeuomorphism contrasts with flat design, a simpler graphic style. [source]

Neumorphism, on the other hand, takes all of the best qualities of skeuomorphism and combines it with flat design.

Which gives us my favorite design trend of all time.

It’s like when you see neumorphism on an app, you actually think you’re going to touch it and experience it in real life.

It’s the craziest feeling, and that’s probably why I love it so much.

30 Examples of Neumorphism Done Right

I want to show you guys my top favorite examples of neumorphism that I found on Dribbble, so let’s have at it.

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I know I love neumorphism, but I want to know what you think about it!

Let me know in the comments if you think this new trend is a vibe, or if you’re onto a whole different trend.

Until next time,

Stay creative, everybody!

Despite the minimalism being present in almost every form of art and the concept of minimalism has been quite around for centuries, it became a specific form of art in the 20th century. Starting then, like vintage or retro design, it has never in or out of a trend – it was just there, regardless of time.

In simple words, the minimalism is defined as eliminating all the unnecessary elements and retain just the fundamental, in order to allow the content pop. The “less is more” philosophy is a well-loved style of design among web designers, who are increasingly appreciating it.  Even if the minimalism offers the websites that embrace it many advantages, maybe the most important are faster loading times, a better compatibility between the different screen sizes, the clean and beautiful visuals and the efficiency in conveying the message to the audience. Moreover, a simple UI design is attuned to mobile browsing, without harming the desktop experience.

In terms of design, the minimalist aesthetic is the visual representation of this concept. Even if in the early days of this style it was very difficult for the designers to achieve its simplicity and clean lines, they have learned to “declutter” the visual to the point of it being the second nature. However, some of the designers take it a step further and cut out almost everything from the design.

Indeed, even if the latest web designs with loud color, trendy headers, and stunning imagery are really attractive, sometimes, it’s nice to see and admire the everlasting minimalist style. The ultra-minimalist websites in this list focus on composition and typography to create clean and simple visuals, and the naked designs are as beautiful as those full of glamour.

Rubrasonic

The website uses changing dark backgrounds that harm the eyes a little bit. Otherwise, the extreme simplicity defines the whole design. For the home page, the white centered logo shows some music-related quotes, such as: “I call architecture frozen music” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), “After silence, that which comes closest to expressing the inexpressible is music” (Aldous Huxley) and so on. The navigation menu is represented by the white dots on the left of the screen and hovering the mouse over them brings up the category title.

Leen Heyne

Besides its jewelry, Leen Heyne’s monochrome logo and company name are the only significant visual elements on its homepage. The surrounding expanse of gray space and white texts make it a safe bet, the user’s eyes going back and forth between the two core visual elements.

Wmat.it

Here is an extremely minimalist homepage design. Most of the elements on this page do something – the letters are the navigation menu and show the categories on mouse over. The solid black square shows some video clips when you hover the mouse over it. The only element that does nothing is the circle.

Wildflower

Seeing this page, it’s no wonder that this joyful little website is ultra-minimalist as there really isn’t much content throughout! The home page has black text on a white background, the only accent of color being the pink heart in the text. The next page is similar, just asking you for your name and the name of the person you want to give a flower to, then you get your flower, which you can change if you wish.

Hunkwot

This site uses the ultra-minimalist concept in a very beautiful way. The home page has a very pale gray background with thin, hardly-visible white lines separating the categories that are displayed in black text across the page. When you hover over any of the links, a shape with colored lines/arrows appears, adding a lovely splash of color to the page.

The Post Family

Discover the full layout of this ultra-minimalist website. It begins with a black & white screen which showcases a big heading, the menu, and the logo design. Also, you can navigate through the site using your keyboard.

Velvet Hammer

Velvet Hammer’s site demonstrates the value of composition in minimalism. The two dominating visuals are poised symmetrically, all four corners are occupied, the entire scene is framed by a thick black border, and thin lines bisect the vertical and horizontal halves. At the center of the screen – though not the composition – is the brand name. The whole site has the same ultra-minimalist design.

Symbolset

Icon font vendor Symbolset attracts attention to the interactive area in the middle of its site by minimizing the competing elements and adding a brightly colored, ever-changing background. An inspired demonstration of minimalist design.

Huggable.io

This is a real expression of extreme minimalism. The website is, in fact, an app that will tell you when a flight is due to arrive. You enter the airline, then you are asked for the flight number – if that flight number is relevant to more than one flight you will be offered the days of the flight to choose from, then finally you are shown the departure and arrival times – or when your ‘huggable’ time is! This is great if you are waiting at an airport for a delayed flight – as long as the airline actually has some idea of arrival time, you can get the info.

We Ain’t Plastic

We Ain’t Plastic website uses the philosophy “less is more” in a very classic way. Contrast is another useful visual tactic for keeping minimalist designs interesting. German UX engineer Roland Lösslein’s website We Ain’t Plastic sets up a stark contrast in size between the central image and the text and icons above.

Brian Nathan Hartwell

The homepage is dominated by the black background, the only accent being “gold” and white typography. This website is well-organized into a grid layout which includes a certain project. Each one has an amazing animation which comes to life when you hover over.

Carlo Barberis

The Italian jeweler Carlo Barberis takes the advantage of the high-end attributes of ultra minimalism, with little more than a hero image on each screen. As usual, an image speaks more than one thousand words.

Why we explore

Created by the Swiss interaction designer Nicolas Lanthemann, Why We Explore is a blog about space that follows an interesting format. Although the topic is vast, the information is given plenty of space to breathe; each new theme being announced as the viewer scrolls horizontally across the page.

The Office of Jason James

In terms of design, a minimalist approach can say a lot about your website. This is a stunning portfolio website that uses a side menu and a creative clean design. The light gray background accompanies beautifully the dark-gray typography and the stunning pictures, leaving the information room to breathe.

Elite Model

Modelling agency Elite takes the minimalist design to its extreme. In terms of navigation, the focus is on only two main pathways, and all the others tucked away in a hamburger menu. In terms of visual design, the website has the classic black and white color scheme, excepting the “Become a model” section. Another website where the photos speak for themselves.

Werkling Brand Design Agency

For sure, you can express more with less! The Werklig agency knows this! Their website uses a large white background and the classic black and white color scheme for the part that is designated for their presentation. On the other side, for their portfolio, they used a grid layout to showcase each project.

Lunar Gravity

This website includes a neat parallax effect which makes everything come to life, giving another dimension to the entire layout.

Scytale

Scytale is another defining website for the concept of minimalism in web design. They use very large white and light gray background and big and bold typography, helping the user to focus on the main message. The red color used for some flat design and typography are the only color accents used here.

Thrive

Simple design on a subtle grid. Garnished with flat design and simple, bright blue color via scrolling. A fun, clean, good interaction!

Yaron Schoen

You only need a message and a creative way to showcase it to the public. This minimalist website also includes a full-screen menu design which can be accessed from the sticky logo design on the top left.

With so much information related to the evolution of the graphic design, I don’t think there is any designer who can deny that flat design is one of the latest and hottest trends in the graphic design world. Having its own roots in the minimalist design, this visually simple and simplistic style can have many different forms and definitions. But to clear the things right from the beginning, I think it’s a better option to describe flat design starting from what it isn’t:

1. Flat design is not 3D. In simple words, the style’s name comes from its two-dimensional characteristics that are given by the usage of the flat shapes and of the details that create depth and dimension, such as shadows, textures, and highlights.
2. Flat design is not skeuomorphic. It started as a reaction against skeuomorphism. Designed to suggest or to look like (resemble) the real-world objects or processes, skeuomorphism uses generously effects such as drop shadows, reflections, realistic textures, bevel and emboss, glows and so on.

Flat design started to be a recognizable style in 2012 and 2013 thanks to the release of Windows 8 and iOS 7.

Why is flat design so popular today?

There are many reasons for which the flat website design has taken the web world by storm. Easy user interface, bold colors, sharp images, simple navigation, distinctive fonts, easy to read the text, all together contribute in making flat design the best option for many designers and customers. Indeed, all designers know that flat design is two-dimensional, uses simple graphic design and icons and has some minimalist approach that makes especially the web design projects easy to manage. On the other hand, for the companies which embrace this style, it comes with attributes such as simple user interface, friendly aesthetics, clean, colorful, positive wire-framing effect, minimal, ease of use and maintenance and the list seems to continue.

We see today tons of SaaS companies and products leverage flat design for creating easy to understand and simple products. Here are a few resource management software tools to online banking apps, they all started to embrace flat design and absolutely nail it.

However, the web designers have to face these days not just the challenge of a new relative trend, but they also have to make sure the design is responsive enough to provide the user an easy access on other devices than just desktops.

Taking into consideration the flat design has been around for a few years and is still going strong, for sure it’s more than just a passing trend and it has come here to stay. As for any other trend, there are two sides of the same coin that each designer should know and not just blindly follow the trend.

So, let’s look at flat design pros and cons and also let’s see where it might head in the future.

The PROS

Flat design is trendy

As we’ve already mentioned, flat design is one of the hottest trends nowadays. You may see it everywhere, whether it’s about brand design, print, packaging or web design. Those visual projects that use flat design are on top and this style has gained the attention of many graphic designers in a very short time.

Flat design is compatible with the responsive design

Since Microsoft, Apple and other big brands have embraced the flat design, this style was also adopted as a fresh approach to delivering a great experience to the users. From its appearance until now, it has been and continues to be an excellent choice for web and mobile design – and for some good reasons.

It’s true the flat design principles fits all design categories and can be applied by all of them, but its grid-based layouts and simple visual are particularly suited to web and mobile design because they can be easily resized or rearranged to display on different devices and screen sizes.

Taking into consideration that the number of people connecting to the internet using mobile devices surpassed the number of those who access the internet using a desktop, the reason for choosing flat design website is more than obvious. According to Ryan Allen, flat design can be used to “dynamically scale to a content-appropriate size much simpler than a pixel-perfect design.”

Flexible framework

No matter how you name it – grids, cards or modules – many visuals using the flat look tend to rely their graphics on geometric shapes, especially because this type of layout is easy to scan and navigate. The grids or modules are also flexible frameworks that can be shaped into different configurations. This allows the designers to create visuals that best suits with different design projects and display their content, rather than gather the content in limiting and pre-determined layouts.

Let’s take a look at the two examples listed below:

The San-Francisco based agency Moniker uses grids in different ways to show their work, profile, and news.

On the other hand, these brochure and flyer designs feature different geometric shapes for highlighting various design elements such as typography and icons. Also, the blocks of uniform colors and simple illustration bring the flat look for both of them.

Clean typography

Because of the lack of three-dimensional effects and of the quite simple visual, flat design also provoke the designers to approach the typesetting in a different way. Often, the result is a larger and more streamlined typography that combined with bright colors, bold and creative look makes it look absolutely stunning.

Clean and Sharp Visuals

One of the most important characteristics that make a flat design so appealing and interesting is its sharp design. The icons, shapes, lines, and buttons are all in the minimalist style, making the visual look beautiful. Also, the high-contrast features including bright colors, typography, and boldness all together make the design clean and easy to follow.

The CONS

Lack of Distinctiveness

In terms of visual communication, every business or brand wants its design to communicate their unique characteristics, whether they are using about brochures, posters, websites, apps or something else to convey their message.

One of the downsides of flat designs is the constraints imposed to designers by the minimalist approach and relatively strict rules. With a limited choice of principles to apply, combined with other current graphic design trends, we’re seeing a huge rise in generically designed visuals.

For instance, let’s take a look at the two apps listed below, which are unrelated to each other:

Both of them feature almost the same geometric shapes, use the same color scheme and overlapped white sans-serif text.

Compromised Usability

While they strive to emphasize the flat design’s clean and minimalist qualities, some designers fall into the trap of focusing too much on aesthetics to the detriment of usability. This is a particular risk for the web and mobile design.

Since everything is flat, it’s hard to say what is clickable and what is not. To keep it simple, flat design projects tend to have less “information density”, so, important features and actions can be hidden from the view. Therefore, many users don’t accept with an open heart the too much simplicity in interface design that characterizes the flat design.

Extreme minimalism

The ethos of flat design is to implement the “Swiss Style” philosophy. A philosophy that places heavy emphasis on minimalism amongst other things. But the minimalism included here is a fine line that could be easily overstepped and transform everything in a featureless site.

On the other side, it can be difficult to convey a complicated visual message in flat design. One of the arguments against flat design is the simplicity of user-interface tools. The supporters of skeuomorphic design say the effects that add a sense of realism make the tools easy to use. Frankly, I think it depends on the context.

The FUTURE

Flat 2.0

As the flat design has been around for few years with all its pros and cons, the designers decided to adjust the style according to their needs.

In its early days, the flat design was characterized by a strict visual simplicity. However, for both aesthetic and functional reasons, the recent developments have brought the subtle reintroduction of effects like shadows and textures. The result is a style named “Flat 2.0” or “almost-flat” design.

This style is more of a compromise: you still get the clean simplicity of flat design but add some subtitle 3D effects for a visual variety and improved usability.

Material Design

Including many common characteristics with Flat 2.0, Material Design is a visual language developed by Google that accentuates grid-based layouts and features of “deliberate color choices, edge-to-edge imagery, large-scale typography, and intentional white space” to create a “bold and graphic interface that immerse the user in the experience”.

Considering the material as a metaphor, Material Design uses a paper-inspired approach with “visual cues that are grounded in reality” and “familiar tactile attributes” for helping users to quickly understand and navigate the designs. Also, the “fundamentals of light, surface, and movement are key to conveying how objects move, interact, and exist in space and in relation to each other. Realistic lighting shows seams, divides space, and indicates moving parts.”

As Google Material Design’s guide is free, the designers are encouraged to apply it to their own work, whether they chose to follow closely these guidelines or to pick up and use the elements and techniques they like.

Join the Discussion

Whether you are an advocate of flat design or of skeuomorphism, the two can certainly co-exist. It depends on the context and content. The tricky part, as the last years has shown and for sure the next years will prove, is to find the perfect balance between them.

Where do you see flat design moving? Do you think it is here to stay or taking into consideration the last evolution of the graphic design trends, it will rather evolve to something else? Feel free to share your thoughts and insights in the comments.

Having a smartphone or a tablet is something common these days. Therefore, it’s hard to imagine our day-to-day life without apps that make it much easier and simpler. Whether it’s social media, entertainment, dating, sports, time management,  or even the weather, there is something for everyone.

But an app that’s difficult to figure out how it works, unintuitive, or ineffective will not win many hearts. The best apps provide great user experience and have powerful, useful features that are paired with beautiful and intuitive interfaces.

So, instead of just describing a few nice app designs, we’ve decided to take it to the next level and share with you what we consider to be the best of the best. Below you’ll find a list of 35 of awesome mobile apps when it comes to UI design. These apps really stood out because they went above and beyond to be visually appealing and useful.

Movie/Video

YouTube

YouTube’s mobile app is sleek and intuitive, bringing the whole content of the video sharing site to your fingertips. For those subscribed to YouTube Red, you’ll have access to all the premium content, as well as special features.

HBO Go / HBO Now

Both HBO Now (HBO’s standalone service for $15/month) and HBO Go (a streaming app available to HBO cable subscribers) have apps that allow you to watch all of HBO’s streaming content directly on your phone.

Spotify

Spotify is the best full-featured streaming service. With this app, you can stream any music from any type of device, make your own playlists, follow artists, and sync tracks for offline listening.

Google Play Music

Google’s official streaming service is a strong competitor to Spotify. Not only does the app provide a vast library of content, but it also allows users to upload up to 50,000 songs for online storage. This means you can download and stream your music on any Android device, at any time.

Fitness, Athletic, Workouts

Nike+ Run Club

The Nike+ Run Club App tracks your runs and helps you reach your goals – whether it’s running your first race, or setting a new personal record. You can also measure your progress every mile, get a training program and compete with your friends.

Loox Fitness Planner

With Loox Fitness Planner app you get training goals like losing weight, building muscles or body shaping by choosing your perfect workout plan. There are about 300 training plans that motivate you to stay on track.

Calorie Counter – MyFitnessPal

If you really want to lose weight and get in shape, then you need to start counting those calories. We recommend this app from MyFitnessPal because it is easy, accessible, and completely free.

RunKeeper

Turn your phone into a personal trainer and track your runs via GPS. You can get detailed stats on your workouts, listen to music, get audio cues to spur you on, and share your progress.

Daily Yoga

Yoga is unbelievably powerful. It strengthens your core, increases flexibility and focus, and decreases stress. Plus, it can help you lose weight and stay healthy. This app will guide you through daily yoga routines of varying difficulty and length, and step-by-step, HD videos showing exactly how to do each pose.

Social Media

Instagram

Instagram is a simple way of capturing and sharing the world’s moments. This app is ubiquitous in photography now, so you might as well have it on your phone. Owned by Facebook, the social network centered on photos offers great filters and connectivity with others.

Facebook

The biggest social network on the planet right now has a decent official app. Keep up with your friends and family, jump into instant chats, and stay informed with push notifications. It’s also your personal organizer for storing, saving and sharing photos.

Pinterest

Pinterest is the go-to social network for finding and sharing inspiration on creative projects, hobbies, fashion, and more. The app features the same functionality as the website, allowing you to “pin” and “repin” posts from other users to various boards, so you can share and save new ideas.

Twitter

Twitter’s microblogging platform brought about the now-ubiquitous internet facet, hashtags. Connect with your friends, share new favorite content, follow celebrities, and get breaking news as it happens. You can customize your profile with a photo, description, location, and background photo.

Messaging

Skype

The Skype you know and love has an all-new design, with new features and new ways to stay connected with the people. Besides text, you can send photos, videos, voice messages, Mojis and more. You can also respond to any message with reactions. Also, you may swipe quickly to capture photos and videos.

Whatsapp

WhatsApp Messenger is a free messaging app available for Android and other smartphones. WhatsApp uses your phone’s Internet connection (4G/3G/2G/EDGE or Wi-Fi, as available) to let you message and call friends and family. Switch from SMS to WhatsApp to send and receive messages, calls, photos, videos, documents, and Voice Messages.

Tinder

Tinder is the ultimate dating app for mobile users, thanks to its location-centric features, and regardless of what its reputation may be, it’s still a great way to meet people. Your next match could be a swipe right away.

Bumble

Similar to Tinder in terms of presentation, Bumble is designed to flip the usual gender dynamics of dating from women to men. The app only allows women to message first, reducing the chances of setting awkward pickup lines or situations. In the same sex matches, either person can message first.

Blogging

Tumblr

The app allows you to discover and post about stuff you love, and join communities of people who love the same stuff like you. You can repost other people’s posts to your own blog and can add comments if you like. Also, other people can do the same with your posts.

Blogger

This is the official app for one of the most popular blogging platforms on the Internet. You can compose, edit, and post directly to your blog, and much more. If you have more than one account or blog, you can switch easily between them.

Cooking

Zomato

Zomato lets you search for and discover restaurants to eat out at or order in from. You can search by location, cuisine, budget, user reviews and ratings, and use the map feature to guide you there. There’s also a handy shake feature to get a random suggestion if you just can’t decide.

Food Network

Get instant access to your favorite Food Network chefs and personalities, including thousands of their most popular recipes featured on their TV shows and specials. How-to videos and shopping list features will equip you with everything you need to make a great meal.

Yummly

Featured on the Today Show, Yummly matches over 1 million recipes to your cooking lifestyle’s nutrition, diet, food allergies, and favorite cuisines. The app allows you to collect, save and organize your favorite recipes in your digital recipe box and discover customized recipe recommendations.

Money and Shopping

Paypal

By downloading the app, you’ll be able to manage your PayPal account at a glance. It is the easiest online method to manage all the ways you send, receive and spend money. The app can also notify you of transactions, offering handy reminders and alerts when you use PayPal as a payment method or have an upcoming bill due.

Mint

Mint is the free money manager and financial tracker app from the makers of TurboTax® that does it all. Mint can keep track of multiple bank accounts or credit cards to help you stay on budget and out of the red.

Amazon Shopping

The Amazon Shopping app lets you shop millions of products and manage your Amazon orders from anywhere. Browse the vast collection of products quickly and easily. Plus, you can enable notifications for daily Amazon Gold Box deals so you never miss out on a discount.

Travel & Events

Uber

Uber is a ridesharing app for fast, reliable rides in minutes — day or night. Uber allows you to call upon a private driver in your city who will help you get to where you need to go, and it’s easy to pay by credit or cash in select cities.

Airbnb

By using the Airbnb app, you may find adventures in faraway places or your hometown, and access unique homes, experiences, and places around the world. You can search for accommodation, communicate directly with hosts, book everything your trip needs, or start earning money as a host.

Going Out

Foursquare City Guide

Foursquare City Guide will lead you to the perfect spot — anywhere in the world. Get helpful, positive tips from our trusted global community and keep track of where you’ve been and where you want to go, all in one place.

Yelp

Yelp puts great local businesses at your fingertips. Whether you’re looking for a pizzeria near you or the best handyman in town, the app is your guide to finding the perfect places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play. Find reviews, locations, and other important information for any business you’re looking for.

Documents & Management

Dropbox

Dropbox’s mobile app keeps your files and your team in sync. You can access any file saved in Dropbox from all of your devices and send large files even to people who don’t have a Dropbox account. And with features like the doc scanner, shared folders, offline access, and more, collaborating with others is simple.

Trello

Trello gives you the perspective over all your projects, at work and at home. The project management app allows you to create boards to organize anything you’re working on, customize workflows for different projects and much more. You may use it solo or invite other people to collaborate. If you work offline, the boards will sync automatically when reconnected.

Teamweek

Perfect for multinational and remote teams, Teamweek app is a simple-to-use project and resource planner that gives a great overview on a shared team calendar. You may spot who’s available and schedule upcoming projects for both the short- and long term.

Toggl

Toggl is the leading timesheet app for tracking worked hours. By using the timer, you may log task times and get reports based on the time usage. All the time logs are synced to the cloud and you can track time also in the web version, desktop app, Chrome extension and with an Android watch – all your data is safely stored under one account.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a safe place for all your files and puts them within reach from any smartphone, tablet, or computer. The app lets you store up to 15GB of files and access them wherever and whenever you need to. Once you save the files there, you can easily invite others to view, edit, or leave comments on any of your files or folders.

Evernote

Evernote is an elegant solution when it comes to taking all sorts of notes and getting work done. The app gives you the tools you need to keep your work effortlessly organized — from taking notes with supporting photos, to writing to-do-list and much more. Tag, sync, and organize for a real productivity boost.

This article is the third in a series devoted to the understanding of minimalism in web design. During the time, this trend has become very popular among the graphic designers and it will still be on top for the years that will come, regardless the influences it will have.

You might assume minimalism is easy – after all, fewer elements mean less work, right? In fact, the opposite is more accurate. Because you are restricted to a usage of few elements, they must be chosen and used with care and thoroughness, having a specific purpose as a starting point. If it’s done properly, minimalist design can be a stunning masterpiece, in terms of UI, visual design, UX and conveying your message to the users.

It may seem ironic, but in the context of web design, simplicity is a little more complex to define. It’s not just the site looks like; it’s about the user’s overall experience while interacting with the site. From this perspective, minimal design is not made by mistake. It is intentional. It is an approach that strips the unnecessary elements from a framework to leave only what is required. Most minimalist websites will not include a lot of colors, textures, shapes or accents. They are defined by fearless usage of negative space in neutral colors, dramatic typography, large and vivid photography, very simple navigation tools and visual balance.           

Minimalism works because it does what all design should do – it puts the emphasis on content.

The advantages of minimalism in web design and the reasons for its popularity include:

1. It’s a natural fit with responsive design frameworks;
2. It reduces the information for browsers to process, causing faster site load times and better site performance; this leads to a better usability and user experience;
3. It needs less CSS and Html rules and elements;
4. The concept is content-driven, which coincides impeccably with the growth of content-first design processes and trends;
5. It is suitable for a variety of businesses, from architecture, interior design, fashion, photography, creative studios, to e-commerce, web app development, furniture, HoReCa and so on.

Using the minimalist concept in web design represents modern design. By only focusing on the content and branding, the web design will reflect its main goal and mission without any other distracting elements. 

Below are listed some websites from different industries, which use minimalist design concept for conveying their message and provide a great UX:

Minimalism in photography portfolios

Running a photography business is not common. Beyond stunning photos, it requires much creativity and refinement when it comes to communication with the potential customers. If you want to learn more about running a photography business, you may find more information in Braveen Kumar’s article (link to www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-sell-photos-online)

In terms of web design, minimalism is the preferred choice for the photographers who want to let their work speaking for itself. The style gives an air of elegance and sophistication that lends itself to this industry.

Christine Szczupak Photography

The stylized arrows and subtle drop-shadow are important details that increase the visual appeal of this website.

Ryan Willms

The spacing and arrangement of content here, along with the elegant typography and simple lines, give the feeling of a fresh design.

Caitlin Worthington Photography 

The white background is the perfect canvas for the large and vivid photographs that are perfectly balanced by the typography. A classic example of minimalist design.

Jonathan Glynn Smith

A dramatic splash screen and beautifully minimalist design.

Bruce Percy

A very simple design that leaves the viewer no doubt what he’s seeing. A quick glance is enough to see what the photographer does. Navigation is again clear and simple. The black background works well with the minimalist design.

Minimalism in the creative industry

Exponent PR

To highlight their video montage (and photos as you scroll), Exponent’s site features simple colors and fonts that make everything pop.

Bark PR

Like Exponent PR, the previous PR company on our list, you’ll see flat UI and bold colors. But in Bark PR’s case, the yellow is much more than a simple accent.

Oh My! Digital Design Studio

Oh My!  uses a large white background for some high-contrast effect and a very simple navigation to provide a great UX.

AuthenitDesigns

AuthenticDesigns is a design blog that uses simplicity and minimalism to make images stand out and make content easier to read.

Brave Little Tank

Like Oh My!, Brave Little Tank also uses a large white background for getting a high-contrast effect with the website content. The accents of colors are given by pictures and the green color of highlighted text. The navigation is simple, letting the users dive in quick and easy through the whole site. With its website, Brave Little Tank has created a simple, impactful solution (what they also have promised to their clients).

Brian Danaher

Another website that opts for a single column and bold typography. If you take a closer look, you will notice the classic mix for the minimalist concept: a lot of negative space, large and vivid photos, typography that perfectly balances the images.  

Callens 

Minimalism is the preferred choice for fashion websites and those selling luxury items, like Italian brand Callens. This design concept gives an air of elegance and sophistication that lends itself to certain industries.

Leen Heyne

Besides its jewelry, Leen Heyne‘s monochrome logo and company name are the only significant visual elements on its homepage. The surrounding expanse of gray space and white texts make it a safe bet, the user’s eyes going back and forth between the two core visual elements.

 Bulgari

Italian luxury goods brand Bulgari is another company that uses creative techniques to keep its site interesting within its minimal framework. Side-to-side scrolling combines with an ingenious page-turning animation and high-quality photos.

Yield

Lots of space, soft pastels, middle to dark gray colors for text, large photos and keeping buttons to a minimum make Yield’s site delicate and easy to navigate.

 Conspiracy

Conspiracy’s homepage bundles necessary buttons on top then puts the product on a clean canvas.

NTN

This site is traditionally minimal. Design brand NTN uses the abundant white space, personality-infused typography, and a reduced number of elements that the minimalist style is known for.

Minimalism in website and app development

Squarespace

This screenshot from website-building service Squarespace illustrates the idea of one focal point per screen. The site explains everything it needs in screen-by-screen images, and groups together relevant blurbs on the same screen.

Scytale

Scytale is another defining website for the concept of minimalism in web design. They use very large white and light gray background and big and bold typography, helping the user to focus on the main message. The red color used for some flat design and typography are the only color accents used here.

Thrive

Simple design on a subtle grid. Garnished with flat design and simple bright blue color via scrolling. A fun, clean, good interaction!

iPad mini 4

Apple is no stranger to minimalism. The web page for the iPad mini 4 uses lots of literal white space to draw attention to the product’s sleek design. The clear top bar, also featuring an abundance of space, helps the user to navigate.

Château d’Yquem

Winemaker Château d’Yquem combines minimalism and subdivision in its site. Each section follows the minimalist philosophy with only a few elements revolving around a single concept. When combined, the sections’ size and location on screen create a visual hierarchy.

Maemo 

The website for double-Michelin-starred Norwegian restaurant Maaemo uses minimalism to create a sense of class. The visual treatment is perfect for storytelling, as the site demonstrates with HD photos used for each page.

Bottom line

We know you have a lot of information to offer to your visitors and you’d like to feature all of them on your website, but you should keep in mind that will also throw your visitors into an information overload.

Before anything else, make sure your website features only the most important information and link the additional stuff. And don’t worry, if people are interested in learning more about your company, they will look for links or they will contact you.

Most of all, make sure your brand and your target audience fit the concept of minimalism before going for this website design concept. Because unfitting use of colors, typography, and visuals will not bring the same results for your business.

Even if it’s not suitable for all business websites, minimalist design style comes with plenty of great advantages that make it more effective than any other design style in the web design industry.

In this tutorial, we’re going to take a look at Layers and Symbols in Adobe XD.

Download Adobe Experience Design CC (Adobe XD).

In this tutorial, we’re going to learn how to quickly blur backgrounds in Adobe Experience Design CC (Adobe XD).

The Steps (1-8)

1. Create a New Artboard. For this tutorial, we’ll be using the iPad artboard, with the orientation being adjusted to Landscape in the Property Inspector.

2. Select the Rectangle Tool, Left-click and Drag to create a four-sided shape that is the same width and height as your artboard.

3. Next, Drag the image that you would like to blur, from your desktop or folder, into Adobe XD and on to the shape that we created in Step 2.

4. Repeat Step 2 and create a second four-sided shape, that again, is equal to the width and height of your artboard.

5. Select a Fill colour of white or #FFFFFF for this new shape, and in the Property Inspector, select the tick box Background Blur – this will blur the image behind the shape.

6. The options that appear underneath (from top to bottom) are Blur Amount, Brightness and Opacity. The Blur Amount adjusts how ‘blurred’ your image underneath the selected shape will be, and goes up to +50. The Brightness adjusts how light and dark affects your image, and can be adjusted as low as -50, and as high as +50. The Opacity adjusts the amount of transparency for the shape created in Step 4, and how visible your image underneath is. Opacity ranges from 0-100%.

7. Selecting a different Fill colour and adjusting the Opacity slider below, allows any colour to display transparently over the image as an overlay.

8. The Background Blur effect can also be toggled on/off at any time in the Property Inspector.

Download Adobe Experience Design CC (Adobe XD).