The Subtlety of 'Less is More'

For a while now a trend has caught on in the website field that says "Less is More" and this is not a new idea but it's a fairly new phenomenon to the website scene. In website communities it's called "minimalism web design". Minimalism caught on first in the American visual arts world around the 1960's with abstract arts.

The Japanese culture and Zen Philosophy is best known for minimalism, freedom and simplicity, and has been inspiring the minimalism evolution long before the 1960's. With Zen it's a type of consciousness which is conveyed. And when something is conveyed from a type of consciousness or your way of being, then it has an impact that cannot be practiced nor forced through learning techniques. It's not a learning nor a style; it's a way you're lived, a way you see life. You see it everywhere, this emptiness, this spaciousness. You understand deeply in your being and it vast importance to you that it reaches into all layers of your consciousness.

It's very obvious to me that most website designers are aware of the minimalism concept but they relate to it as a style of design that can be used. They use it to shape their design but they are not shaped by it so their designs reflect that. You must become your art piece otherwise the art is simply a construction and robotic, it's not a present aliveness or extension of you.

Most website designers have learned minimalism design but are not wise to it. It's lacking essence for them, it's just empty knowledge with no wisdom behind it. When you realize it through a discovery then it stops being a way to design websites and it becomes deeper and vaster in its meaning. The subtlety of what it actually is strikes you. It's a subtle conveying which goes way beyond "liking the minimalism style".

The idea of minimalism web design is to use vast amounts of white space. It's used to convey simplicity and make content stand out but it's surface. When it's used, it used throughout the entire website instead of using it subtlety and wisely. The minimalism web design idea points to something useful but if you're unaware of the subtleties behind the inspiration of minimalism design then it will not have the desired effect nor produce the effective results you're intending to capture.