The minimalistic trend has influenced the design and art industry and has become a style which many brands have adopted from their branding to webpages. It can even be seen how its even used in social media and marketing.
The history of Minimal
Minimal peered as a reaction to the abstract expressionism movement, that concentrated on emotional expression through colours and intertwined shapes, that often led to pieces that at times even seemed chaotic.
Minimalism has at its core stripping shapes and forms from any altering intervention and aims to portray only the essential. It concentrates on the representing the natural form in the most simplistic way possible.
This design movement started in New York in the 1960’s, so it is a pretty recent design trend, it was started by a group of designers that opened the way for minimalism by experimenting with geometric abstraction, that used only shapes and forms. Other design movements that laid the groundwork for minimalism were: the German style, Bauhaus, that as a motto has form follows function, De Stijl that concentrated in order, grids, clear typefaces and the use of negative spaces and Scandinavian design, which is now known for its clear and structured forms.
The influence on digital and marketing
Minimalism is the most used technique and design, we will explore how it is used for websites, apps and digital design.
When it comes to websites and apps, minimalism has introduced the flat design having a great impact, on how these are created today. It encourages a layout that is clean and concentrates on a 2D look, rather than having buttons that have shadows or raised surface, it uses colour and shape to express a buttons intention. Some of the benefits of using flat design for websites and apps are: it focuses on the content, its faster and its easier to build in coding.
For social media the creation of minimalistic content has been a recurrent trend used by people and businesses. It us used because it gives a very clean and ordered aesthetic with people enjoy seeing due to the fact that they are used to seeing so many external factors, that psychologically when they see order it calms them. The benefits of using a minimalistic approach on social media are: it’s faster so you have content flowing constantly, it offers from the start a clean look form the fact that only a few colours are used and it looks professional.
Overall, minimalism has overtaken all other design trends as the to-go method, for creating a clean look that also takes less time and assures success. Remember, simple is better!
